A Constant Trouble
by Tare-Bear
Summary: What if Hawke, wasn't really Hawke? Instead, a tired Grey Warden and Hero of Fereldan, searching for a new way to live. A female mage broken hearted by King Alistair and unable to stand by as he marries goes in search of her own life. She changes her name, gets new friends, and becomes a new legend.
1. Prologue

A/N: It has been so long since I updated this story. I've changed it a lot and I thought you all would be angry at me for sabotaging my old posted one, so here's this newly published story that will leave the old version of this untouched. I am going to hopefully get things posted faster. We'll see. Thank you for reading. Sorry for typos. Reviews are updates. -Taryn

The story is post-DAO. DA:Awakening never happens. Concerning the progression of this story, I will be flipping from the past to the future, and eventually, we'll find ourselves in the present. This factor my confuse you, but if you pay enough attention, you'll puzzle out what's going on. You will get to see everyone from Dragon Age 2 except Sebastian. (Sorry, I've never played his added gameplay. I don't know him.) This story will be quite angsty, revolving around romance. Enjoy.

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Prologue

"Still friends, right?"

The words had come out so breathlessly they were hardly a whisper. Yet, I knew I couldn't have said it any louder. My chest felt inundated with cold water, like a horde of Darkspawn stood atop it. One struggling heart racing against my speeding pulse, in a hopeless, dreadful competition that would never end.

"Of course," he'd said.

His stiffened voice had done nothing to soothe my nerves and my eyes lifted from the carpet to see a feeble smile framing his lips. Lips I had once kissed... but never again. Not after that night, not after the Archdemon lay dead and Fereldan stood king-less. Alistair had a duty and a privilege; one of which I had given to him because I knew it was a part of mine own duty. We both had duties. And the ones that had brought us together were ending... ___soon_. Too soon.

I was a mage. I could not stand beside him any longer. From the day the Archdemon was dead, I was no longer a desperately needed Grey Warden, given pardons to fight the threat of darkspawn. Slowly, but surely, everyone would come to see only the mage again. Lock me away, again. It should bother me. It should enrage me, but then, at that time, it was not even that fact that bothered me the most... It was that I had not planned on loving him. I had not thought that I would be feeling something.. the heart wrenching need. Never, before Alistair, had I felt so intimate to someone, connected, and to be kissed by those lips...

I could have pushed him. Bullied my way to his side, throwing aside the proper duties that were given to us by the world. I could have crumbled what little resistance he upheld to those duties, the miniscule strength he had put forth for my own benefit, but I could not. Be his mistress? Become an unfavored queen by his side? The taint was in both him and I. Our children would be abominations. At least, no one knew for certain, considering it was not common for marriages between men and women Grey Wardens. Even less likely, a woman in the Grey Wardens willing for a life of marriage and childbirth.

Simply, it was not that I couldn't be his queen, I couldn't be ___a _queen. A mage with that much rule and power? I would be spit upon. They would call Fereldan a Tevinter in the making. Hero of Fereldan or not, I would have eventually found myself in the awkward position of a rebellion, led by men and women with a piercing hatred for my kind and resting on the lips of those rebels would be my name, sneered.

And to share him? Never. To force such a thing, the passing from one bed to another, his marriage bed that would be cold and fake, to mine that would be, yes, warmer, yet still adultery... would have made me feel ill. There would always be the real queen, his real wife, and she would have hated me; seeing me day after day at court, knowing that I was the woman her husband really loved. Even for Alistair, to have him, I wouldn't want to be known as the whore, the woman who stole him away from his wife. I vehemently refused to stoop to such shame. I refused to feel guilt every time the real wife saw me with that hatred in her eyes. To put myself through that day after day, feeling my envy like a blow to the gut every time I saw her, because she got to be the woman publicly at his side, would have only slowly driven me mad.

I knew all that. He knew it. All the emotions crammed into the room around us, felt heavy and unbearable, dampening the rush of fighting adrenaline for tomorrow's war. His words knocked me breathless, imprinting themselves on my heart, and I knew I would not forget them, it would be as memorable to me as the harrowing and the day I became a Grey Warden.

___Friends, _he said.

Andraste, what does that mean?

I was staring at his lips, struggling for the right words. What would severe the tie the best? Was there something I needed to say, right then, that couldn't be said later? Then I remembered that there might not be a later. The Archdemon awaited me. Morrigan awaited Alistair in the next room; my stomach lurched at the reminder. "Right," I said, eyes sliding from his lips to the wall on my right. "Good."

"I will always love you," he said.

I instantly gave a curt shake of my head, exasperated, nervous fingers tugging on the sleeves of my robes.

I felt Alistair stir. Maybe he meant to move toward me. To possibly hold me in his arms one last time. Would I let him? Should I? Fortunately for my sanity's sake, Alistair controlled the impulse, shifting so that he leaned heavily into the bed post nearest to him. I forced myself to lift my head to look at him one last time, to capture him as he was then; casual, goofy, awkward.

Alive.

A series of painful spasms twisted through my heartstrings, the way a hound gets ensnared in rope and struggles to find its way free. Burrowed inside me, locked away, hushed to the most acute and tedious degree, were my feelings. And, oh, how they fought to be free. How much I wished to damn all consequences. The want was blinding. The ache in my head was due to all the effort I put forth, to put Fereldan first, my duty ahead of feeling, my career ahead of love. The hardest thing I did that day, wasn't kill the Archdemon, it was taking in the sight of the blood caked, sweaty, cheering Alistair after the battle, and turning away, because I was never even meant to have him.

"And I, you," I retorted, softly.

We stared at each other; gray-whipped blue eyes clashing and penetrating a piercing azure.

One move or word and he would close the distance between us. I could be kissing him in seconds. It would be me underneath him tonight, not Morrigan. Part my lips and draw in a small breath and he could have jumped for the chance. And I would do the same, had he only parted his.

Instead, I compressed my lips into a hard line and Alistair turned away. My throat thickened, and I closed my eyes from the sight. I listened to the clanking of his boots against the floor until the click of the door reached my ears and I knew. Alistair was gone.


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One

Dragon Age, 9:31 – before all acts – _past_

The timber hall was huge, fully eighty feet end to end and twenty broad. Doors leading to the outside pierced both of the long walls midway down their length, allowing people exit to the latrines, or to the kitchens for more food, while trapdoors in the sixty-foot high-beamed roof allowed the smoke egress when weather permitted: otherwise the fumes from the four heating pits in the floor drifted about the hall until they escaped whenever someone opened an outer door.

Many of the hall's upright timbers were painted the Fereldan colors; cinnabar orange, gold, and black in interweaving designs. The heights were hung with almost one hundred shields. Tonight, both painted designs and shields were barely visible. The hall was full of smoke, heat, and raucous, good-humored noise. Men and women, warriors and priests, arls, wives, and maidens sat at the trestle tables, which ran the length of the hall, while thralls, children, and hounds scampered about, either serving wine, cider, or ale, or nosing out the scraps of meat that had fallen to the rush-covered floor.

At the very back of the hall, I sat, scowling. I was tired and irritable, a long day before this spent talking to noble men and women that had much to say to me, of which things I had no interest in. Not to mention that specific wedding feast had been in the progress some three hours, and I had sat through all three. Three hours longer than I'd ever meant to endure.

I caught the eye of my dining companion. "Tera," Leliana began, her Orlesian accent seeping through every syllable, "how does one feel being second in command here in Denerim?"

I lifted a shoulder in her direction. "S'not so bad."

"Oh?" she said, arching one of those finely plucked eyebrows.

When I didn't answer Leliana leaned forward, an elbow supporting itself on the dining array placed in front of us. She propped her face up against the hand, and at that angle, with her pale, heart-shaped face turned toward mine, her scorched blue eyes had a whole better view of my down turned ones. "You look so gloomy of late... ever since I arrived back into town."

Shocked at the implication, I straightened instantly and gave her my most earnest smile. "Don't be silly, Leliana. It is always a pleasure to have you around me. And everyone else for that matter." At my words her face brightened immediately, but I grimaced in return, as my eyes slid to Oghren across the room. The dwarf was already hopelessly drunk. "Except maybe him, _he_ could do with a few more improvements."

Leliana laughed. "Oh! He is just getting into the celebratory mood!" A strand of cerise hair slipped in front of her eyes, her body shaking with her mirth, and I'd never seen her look so mischievous as when she leaned forward, a sudden suggestive tint taking over her expression. "That's why we all came back, is it not?"

There was a knowing gleam in those bright eyes.

I suddenly could not quite meet her gaze, so I turned away, to survey the feasting hall. Everyone _had_ come back over the course of the past couple of weeks. They dropped all predisposed personal and business preoccupations they had been caught up in over the last few months since the Archdemon's death and came at Alistair's kingly call.

Sten, the brooding, cleft jawed warrior, that I'd learned to respect and befriend, came back to Fereldan, despite how many time I had heard him complaining about such a kingdom. Shale sought us out from her underground haven of dwarven ruins. Wynne surprised us one late evening, only days before the wedding. Even Coel, my war hound, had found himself orbiting back into my circles, brought here directly from the Redcliffe castle where I'd left him under the care of Conner, the son of Arl Eamon Guerrin.

To my pleasant surprise I found I had missed them far more than I previously considered possible. I had always thought that after the war I could fit myself back into the girl that Duncan recruited. She hadn't had any friends other than Jowan, and with how he turned out, who would blame her for not wanting any others? However, I learned that I was wrong, especially, then, as I sat next to my favorite redhead, glowing with her good willed optimism, and I gazed across the timber hall.

There were hundreds of guests from all across Fereldan, but among them I could easily pick out my companies of war, scattered as they were. Zevran was in the corner, charming everything, from noble ladies to maidens, to men and elves, and thralls. His golden hair seemed even more intricately done than usually, twisted in some spots, breathing and livening against the designs of his tattoos and the strands were lush, too, falling around his tanned and partially bare shoulders. In the dim candle light cast about his face, darkened with shadow, an arc of black here, stream of pale there, he was obscured in a mysterious way that couldn't usually be found in the crowded, cheerful Denerim palace, let alone this jubilant wedding feast. I waved a few fingers in a sporadic greeting and Zevran's honeyed brown eyes smiled at me across the hall, above the goblet of wine resting against his mouth.

Further toward the middle of the hall, in comparison to mine and Zevran's strategic placement in the shade, Sten was seated. Despite being completely floored when he showed up I felt a smile tugging at my lips as I watched him emotionlessly talk to a group of adventurous lads. They were the sons of other arls, various richer merchants, and the sort; the kind of boys that would have furious father's by the next moon's turn, when one of them overheard their son repeating the tales I did not doubt Sten, the missionary Qunari he was, told them. That, and I noticed Coel curled up at Sten's feet, gnawing on a wild turkey leg.

Wynne sat with those few mages I'd had taken from the Circle. They were nearest to the front of the hall at their own designated seats, at their very own designated section of table. They were probably her ideal company and I was glad for it. I owed the woman much and more. Had it not been for me, they would have had her locked away in the Circle once more, after the war; Alistair had helped with that effort. Truthfully though, I would have freed others, but I had not been allowed to free anyone younger than fifty, or else it was a risk of reckless mages on the loose. At least, that's how all the stewards and noble men put it. Pretty much the whole thing was a part of the boon I had asked of our new king. Majority of the mages set free were elderly and feeble. The same ones that had apprenticed and raised me from a rather young age.

Only two companions of mine were remotely close together, aside Leliana and me, or Sten and the hound. Shale and Oghren were ever the most crude of our lot and they both had a special place in people's heart because of that; they weren't quite right or normal, but that made them far more easier to accept and for one to feel accepted by (despite Shale's ancient aversion to people). The hulking stone golem amused herself watching the drunken humans at that very moment, which inadvertently, happened to by surrounding our dear, dear Oghren.

Of course, no matter how many times I combed the hall for a head of black hair and a pair of flinty amber eyes, I wouldn't find them. Morrigan was absent. She would not have come even if she could, I would have bet. Social settings were ever her downfall. That many people in one hall would have bemused her, even if she'd fight not to show it. Morrigan would have never showed up to the wedding.. unless, she wanted to rub the event into my face. I wouldn't put it behind her, taking jabs at me used to be a hobby that she'd taken to with quite a fancy. Maker knows I needed more humiliation added to my broken heart.

Leliana had sat back when she noticed my wish not to talk. She had most likely realized pushing me to my breaking point wouldn't have been a good plan. Especially if one considered what a temper I tended to have. Take into thought, my hotheadedness coupled with the past few days of it being unexpectedly exploited throughout an hour, she had made a very good decision.

I could admit throughout the week, or a handful few before it, I was argumentative, difficult, and easily induced to shouting. Anyone who asked a simple question had found me hard to deal with. If a servant asked me what I wanted to drink, or a maid asked me if she should tend to my chambers, a wordless snarl for silence escaped me. There was a particularly annoying son of a noble man, that asked me (for the umpteenth amount of times) if I would make him a Grey Warden, despite his father's direct orders not to, that had gotten his head chewed off, quite unpleasantly.

Trapped inside these palace walls, I couldn't help myself. After everything I worked for during the Blight, there had only been a brief, unsatisfying month of peace throughout the country. In that small frame of time I had stayed in Denerim and helped organize the relief efforts for the kingdom. The right place for someone assigned second in command. But that month turned into more time spent here, with the sudden, fierce storms that gripped Fereldan.

Weeks blurred into months and months reached half a year in a matter of time that threatened to leave me insane. I couldn't leave the castle walls without the worry of whipping rains and freezing winds. The original plan to take a ship along the coast, toward the Grey Warden's newly made Keep, went down the drain once the ports were torn to pieces by the weather's ferocity.

Travel by land had already been slowed because of the whiplash effect of war, but the storms ceased it entirely. Trading roads were still filled with corpses. The water supplies, rivers, wells, lakes, all tasted foul, poisoned by darkspawn and the swollen cadavers floating atop them. Everything seemed corrupted. But the Blight was over. It didn't make sense. The rain flooded the towns. All the harvest fields that belonged to Fereldan castles or strongholds and small villages were burned or ravished or tainted during the war and the threat of winter was coming swiftly, hail and wind furthering the inability to replant crops.

Alistair was hard-pressed to feed his kingdom, let alone clean and renew it. The world of royalty, I could tell, was crushing him slowly. My goofy, laughable Alistair started crumbling under the position I had put him in, and I was forced to watch, trapped within the same palace by storms and influences beyond my control.

And that was why I would not shout or snap at him. Part of me stayed because I had to be his second (he was mine, for such a long time) and I had to help him with the burden I'd put in his hands. It would have eaten me up on the inside if I abandoned him in Denerim with the weight of his deteriorating kingdom on his shoulders. Yet, still, I couldn't believe what I was doing, what I was enduring, what he and myself had opted to put myself through. It was so selfish of me to blame him when I knew it was on me. I had forced him to the position of power, I had pushed and supported his uprising and yet, I resented him for it, underneath everything else.

I cringed on the outside even thinking of it.

A wedding, such as the one I was attending, merited more than a cringe.

For a mere handful of weeks the same wedding that I was attending had been an event I entertained in my head, ever since the time my companions and I had been fighting our way through Orzamar. Alistair's wedding day was supposed to mean more to me. I had thought long and hard about that one happening for days on end; wondering if it were possible, if he would let it happen, whether I truly wanted to marry someone. It was what kept me going at times. It had–for a time–kept my fierce temper under control and made me almost as giddy as the child I'd never been during our travel through the Fereldan wilds.

Too bad that fantasy had been long ago murdered on the path I'd chosen to take.

My hand instantly reached out for my goblet as the thoughts finally found the hatred coiled up inside of me. When one is sitting in a noisy and rejoicing palace, trying desperately to ignore the glaring mistakes of their past, a little liquid courage is called for. And just in case my mind decided to take an even longer walk down memory lane I took an extraordinarily long draught of the thickened, spiced wine. The pungent fluid was flat, but bitterly sweet. It wasn't like the Fereldan wine I was used to; that was much less fancy and simple to the point of plain. The Orlesian wine that had been served for the wedding feast was the last of what we had in the stocks, since all galley trade between Fereldan and Orlais ended, both by the influences of weather and politics.

The moment my goblet was empty I flung it out toward the nearest servant and they hurried over to refill the cup all the way to the brim. I brought it to my lips and saw out of the corner of my eye that Leliana was shaking her head in disapproval. Devote people always seemed to frown on alcoholics. We both knew that I wasn't, though, so her frowning was misplaced and wasted.

I averted my face from her direction. I didn't need to hear what she had to add to my already impending self hatred. Perhaps I could have easily distracted her with the latest gossip, but I found myself not quite in the mood to discuss anything petty or specific at the moment. Not to mention that most every piece of gossip that was running through the Fereldan mills, was gossip about the new queen.

When half of the goblet was empty I set it back against the wood, and my eyes slid upward, across the cluttered, dirty tables, all the way until I reached my purpose. I suppose I had meant to be discreet, but even I knew I had failed at that. There was no amount of subtlety that would have made it so. My gaze instantly, inevitably, zoned in on the head of the hall.

At the head of the hall stood a dais. Before the dais, a juggler sat on a three-legged stool, so drunk, his occasional attempts to tumble his woolen balls and his sharp-edged knives achieved little else save to further bloody his fingers. A group of musicians with bagpipes and flutes—still sober, although they desperately wished otherwise—stood just to one side of the dais, their music lost within the shouting and singing of the revelers, the thumping of tables by those demanding their wine cups be refilled without delay, and the shrieks and barks of children and dogs writhing hither and thither under the tables and between the legs of the feasters.

In contrast to the wild enthusiasm of the hundreds of guests within the body of the hall, aside myself, most of the fifteen or so people who sat at the table on the dais were noticeably restrained. At the center of the table sat Alistair, his golden-red hair tussled as ever. Those swoon-worthy blue eyes of his were the brightest I had seen them.. in such a very long time, despite the shadows that hung underneath them, making him look as exhausted as I felt. There was a carefully controlled grin splitting his face in half as he looked down at his bride; a human noble.

_When was the last time he smiled? _I thought to myself in that vague way people do. When a king watches his kingdom collapse around itself, after he had just won an impossible war and lost a father-figure to it, his first lover, and many more, it was a time of few smiles. But he was smiling then. The whole hall was full of beaming goons. They were saved. The wedding would bring them relief. A much needed one. A dangerous, treacherous, and difficult thing that was taking place, to save the lives of thousands. One that I had proposed myself to the court and to Alistair.

They had laughed at me the first time I proposed it, even Alistair thought I was joking. I brought them the letters I'd found written between King Cailan and the Empress of Orlais. For Alistair to listen to me and accept my offer, it would be at the cost of his father's life's work. To welcome in the Orlais who had at one point been at war with his father and were forced out of Fereldan at sword point.. and what I asked of them was to welcome these foreigners back with open, needy arms.

Eventually the conditions grew so horrible that they had no choice but to open their ears to my words. Her name was Empress Celene I and she is by far the prettiest, most elegant woman in all of the world. She was the reason for Fereldan's cheer and for my bilious silence. Throughout the entire tumultuous celebration, Celene sat at Alistair's right, her eyes downcast to her hands folded demurely in her lap, her food sitting largely untouched on the platter before her.

Celene, the cherished Empress of Orlais, and after that day, Alistair's wife, queen of Fereldan.

There was much surprise when Celene had accepted to marry Alistair almost within a week of his marriage proposal; sent by envoys, that included Arl Eamon. In return for Alistair's marriage to her, as well as the active welcoming of Orlesian citizens within Fereldan, was her war troops, her fortune, her ships and supplies, the entire shared rule of Orlais. Basically, everything he needed to fix his crumbling kingdom.

How could Alistair refuse? How could I be upset that he would? I had brought the plan to him. She had made the scheme possible. I knew my history: After the mad rule of Emperor Florian, Orlais had been brought to the brink of collapse. Celene was its savior, as she was Fereldan's savior then. Orlais had never been quite so peaceful or prosperous as it was underneath her and that's was the hope of Alistair's marriage. The empress highly valued education and learning and was an ardent patron of the arts. Alistair lacked a strong hand, grace, and had only his Templar education. The world of plain and simple and slightly barbaric Fereldan was clashing before my eyes, with the world of elegant, expensive, and somewhat shallow Orlais. It was bound to happen at some point. Yet I found myself wondering what culture would in the end, thrive over the other, morph the other into something entirely different.

Which would be the true leader; Alistair, or Celene?

I stared at the woman as though she could reveal the answers to me.

She was a pretty woman, usual for the court's taste, her attractiveness resting more in her extraordinary stillness than in any extravagant feature. Her glossy blonde hair, currently tightly braided and hidden under her ivory veil (which itself was held in place by a golden circlet of some weight, [may have partly explained why Celene kept her face downcast for so much of the feast]), was one of her best features, as were also her sooty-lashed, deep green eyes and her flawlessly smooth white skin.

Otherwise her features were regular, her teeth small and evenly spaced, her hands dainty, their every movement considered. I couldn't help but compare myself to her. Celene had been living a life of royalty and plentiful wealth from the moment she was born. A life I'd once wished to have. That being in comparison to mine of constant imprisonment. Celene would be remembered as a Hero of Fereldan, as much as myself, except with one difference; she was Alistair's wife and rose to be queen at his side.

Looking at her, no would ever mistake her for anything less than what she was.

When one looked at me, my legs propped up on the bench opposite mine, shoulders hunched forward in defense, lips red with wine, blue eyes blazing, just waiting to snap.. my hair messy, haphazardly twisted to the side of my pale face, a poisonous auburn color.. they would not think of a queen.

On Celene's head rested her golden circle of rank, as thickly encrusted with jewels as her fingers; an only slightly smaller and less expensive model of the crown resting on Alistair's head. I watched the light glint against the metal as she raised her head fractionally to look at the man on her own right. I knew his name was Harold, a man of high rank in Orlais, and her biggest ally, as everyone would have me believe. For most of the feast, Harold sat booming with cheer and laughter where as Celene sat quiet and still. Harold was a large man, thickly shouldered, and wide in the gut, due to almost forty-five years spent at court, rather than the battlefield. His begemmed hands may have been soft and pale, but his eyes were as watchful as mine.

I knew months and months ago I would be giving up everything I had with Alistair at the end of the war, and I'd thought that I was long resigned to the knowledge that sooner or later he would have to marry someone else. Even the fact that I'd chosen his match and that it was made purely for the aid of his kingdom, did nothing to take away the stinging blow of the marriage, the wedding celebration, and the day as a whole. I knew I had let him go for the better, and I had brought Celene to Fereldan for the better of my homeland. So why didn't it feel good to know I'd done my duty and followed through with my choices?

I just didn't understand. I just couldn't stand it. I-

"Ogling Alistair still, I see."

My eyes snapped to the man across the table from me and my cheeks flushed a rather telling red. "I am not!" Defense reared to the surface of my mind in an instant, my expression hardening, as I registered Zevran's voice and his face. He was smirking as he slipped into the bench across Leliana and I. An expression that was not entirely misplaced on his face. "I was admiring one of the arls."

Zevran considered this, then tipped his face toward the front of the hall. I watched his eyes dance from arl to arl. "Which one?" he asked, sliding his eyes my way. "Only two of those arls up there aren't winded old men, so which? The squishy and round Orlesian? Or perhaps the deliciously young Arl Samul?"

Neither; Harold could not have tempted me in a hundred years, and I'd never approach a boy of fifteen, arl or not. But I wouldn't let Zevran win, either. I merely shrugged and reached for my goblet, only to scowl, when Leliana dove for it first and placed it purposefully out of my reach. "You've had plenty," she said.

Distracting me from going off on Leliana, I felt Zevran's warm hands pluck my feet off the bench and pull them into his lap. He pulled the shoes from my feet and begun to rub my soles and toes with those expertly trained fingers. I rolled my shoulders in complaint, muttering a few words, but in all, I didn't completely reject his touch. It was reassuring, and hard not to melt into his hands, as deathly and untrusting as Zevran had come to me in the first instance.

I sighed and felt an urge to collapse onto the top of table. Instead, I just closed my eyes and leaned into Leliana's side. She said something to Zevran as he massaged my feet and he replied with something that made her laugh. Then he addressed me, "Penning up your lust isn't very good, you know, Tera."

I opened my eyes narrowly, to find a familiar spark in his. Some might call him irresistible, and his features enticing and becomingly foreign, especially softening as they were to me. How many time was it that I'd thrown myself at a darkspawn that leaped for his back? How many times had he pulled me out from underneath an enemy I'd foolishly ran at in the heat of the moment? I made an effort to smile at him, until he ruined the moment; "Why not take out all that pent up passion on me for the night? I can promise you, that there will not ever think twice about this old flame of yours, after one night with this–"

"No," I deadpanned, pulling my feet from his grasp. "I'd rather not."

Zevran caught an ankle and pulled my foot back to him, slipping my shoe back on, and then the other one, before letting me go completely. Neither expression, nor confidence faltered at my rejection, but I didn't miss the glance him and Leliana shared. Honestly, I didn't possess the energy to be offended by him, or even Leliana's intervention of my drinking; those were their ways of offering me some sort of comfort, and to help me. Physical comfort was all Zevran knew to do, and Leliana at the very least, was sparing me from turning into a drunken speculation for the entire kingdom to see.

I held Zevran's gaze until he reached across the table, to the man at his side, and took the goblet there. He set it in front of me with a tilt of his chin. "Goat milk," he said. "It's a delicacy, calming to one's nerves, warmed and honeyed as it is."

I touched the cup cautiously, eyes downcast. I glanced up at him and smiled thinly. "Not poisoned?"

That elicited a laugh from him. "No. No poison. You'd think after I helped you defeat the Archdemon and we hunted down the crows together, you'd realize I've no desire to see you dead."

"One can't be too careful," I said, bringing the goblet to my mouth.

Leliana stiffened against my shoulder. "Not to alarm anyone," she said, causing both Zevran and I to straighten and look about, "but I think Oghren is groping Arl Dirk's wife." She shook her head and pulled herself from the bench. I followed her eyes across the hall to the dwarf in mention. He had his grubby little fingers on some woman's breasts. The question of who, I didn't know. I only flinched slightly when Leliana leaned forward to peck my cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow, Tera. You'll need someone to brew you a good hangover cure." She looked to Zevran with a smile and bid him a farewell as well. We both watched silently as she pulled an unstruggling Oghren from the wedding hall and disappeared.

"Such a kind soul, she has," said Zevran. He picked up my discarded wine cup and drank.

"Yes," I agreed, sipping at the goat's milk.

I tried not to let my eyes look back to the front of the hall, since I no longer had a distraction. I knew if I did I would only broil within my infectious thoughts and pull myself deeper into a self loathing no one would enjoy. Instead, I determinedly stared down at my lap. I couldn't really find it in myself to go and talk to anyone. Sten wouldn't amuse me in the mood I was feeling. Shale and I couldn't share a laugh when all I wanted to do was throw anything I could get my hands on at the walls. I'd already been tarnishing Leliana all evening, and Zevran was getting in on the abuse..

I lifted my eyes to consider him.

He smiled on reflex, surprise evident in his face. "Change your mind?"

It was a tease. He hadn't thought I changed my mind, but it was just what he'd said. All evening I was not being a good friend, to any of them, and I'd failed to uphold any of my old cheerfulness. I knew somewhere inside them they pitied me, because as they pretended to put on smiles for Alistair's new bride, they were following me around, trying to pull me from my stupor. It was unfair of me, to reject their comfort. Maybe it was stupid, in a way, for me to refuse to accept help. It was a weak and stubborn maneuver and only added more guilt onto my list of other emotions to be ignored.

Without looking away from Zevran, I set aside my goblet, placed my hand against the table top and pushed myself to my feet. Many people across the hall glanced up as I did, seeing as I was the Hero of Fereldan, and in some sense, important, even on this day, but almost all of them looked away again, uninterested.

"Come on," I said, nodding Zevran to my side and he slipped easily around the end of the table and met me on my way toward the doors leading outside. He caught a strand of hair hanging against my cheek, twisting it around one of his fingers as we exited. I glanced at him out the corner of my eye. "I don't want sex," I told him.

He seemed to consider that, letting the strand fall over my eyes as he pulled his hand away from my face. "It wouldn't be you if I tucked it to the side," he said, then looked around at the considerably cooler and darker hallway we paced down. Off to the sides were groups or couples huddled together, whispering or talking loud enough for their voices to echo through the entire length of the corridor. No one seemed to notice the elf and mage passing them by. "You wouldn't be you if you did want sex."

"A shame," I said.

"No," Zevran decided. "A simple truth."

"The poetry spilling from your mouth, Zev," I said, smiling genuinely at my feet, giving my head a miffed shake. "It's no wonder I couldn't kill you." Already I could feel the wine heavy in my thoughts, muddling me in most ways. I rubbed at my neck, as though it were sore. Why did I always bring that up? Truly, I was just too awkward.

Zevran had the grace not to call me out. "A shame, that you hadn't." I looked up, shocked, but then froze at the arm that wrapped around my torso and pulled me into him. My own arms wound around his shoulders a little too late to call it a true hug. His lips were damp against my ear. I was stiff and awkward underneath the fingers that swept up the length of my back and tugged at the ends of my hair. "If you had, then I wouldn't be forced to do this. For you," and before I could register what he said, Zevran tugged at my hair and tipped my face up to his and his lips captured mine.

I tried to wretch myself away, only to be backed into the wall, the cold stones biting through my robes to skin. Foggy headed, I found my lips moving against his, more in an effort to speak than to return the kiss. He tasted of tartness, though. A lot different than the thick and creamed milk. For two heartbeats, I was giving in, no matter how bewildered I was, and that ended, when Zev pulled away, grinning.

"You're not very attentive when you're drunk, Tera," he murmured. His eyes flickered back toward the direction we came. I lifted my eyes beyond his shoulder and stiffened against the length of his body as I caught sight of the clear outline of a broader shouldered, crowned man slipping from the darker hallway back into the timber hall full of its light and warmth and cheer.

I deflated; no one would have missed the fact that Alistair rose to follow me from the feast. Everyone would have seen him step down from the dais at the head of the hall, and guessed the reason. For one wordless moment I was furious at Zevran for kissing me without permission, knowing Alistair had followed us, when I hadn't. Then I realized why he had done it. "Wouldn't look very good if the king went off to see another woman and never returned to his wife," Zevran commented lightly, stepping away from me, air rushing up to fill the space between us.

I nodded, sagging into the wall.

"Come on, I'll walk you to your room. I would let you do it yourself, having a much better sense of direction in this palace than I, but drinking really isn't very becoming of you."

The walk from the wedding feast to my chambers on the second floor was silent, save for the sounds of night echoing through the stone walls. A howling wind, though less intense from months ago, crackled in a constant hum, mingling with crickets, hounds, and a soft reverberation of shouting from a celebrating city beyond the palace; it was all those uninvited to the wedding, but still celebrating it, gathered in Denerim's respective bars and whore houses.

Dim, flickering candles led our path the closer we got to the main hallways. The stone palace seemed as gloomy as ever. It had always reminded me of the Circle, for no more a reason than that it was a building that enclosed me. All I could hear were my footsteps and Zevran's. Old childhood memories of Jowan and I, wondering around at night, running through dark lengths of corridors, every shadow resembling a Templar, burrowed to the top of my mind, taunting me.

At least the halls were empty. Usually there were guards standing vigilant at every corner, or swarms of noble men and women, just waiting for their chance to speak with the king and complain about lack of food, diminishing lands, highway men, and the like. On our walk we only passed a few maids, relaxing for once, chattering warmly to each other, though as they saw us they feigned dusting one thing or another. Them aside, most everyone was gathered for the feast downstairs, bathing in the drunken haze of the dining hall.

"This is me," I said, stepping up to my door and turning briefly to Zevran.

"Good night," he said. "And my apologies, again, for earlier. I thought it'd be best."

"No, you did the right thing," I said.

Zevran visibly relaxed. "It is not often I hear that."

"Trust your instincts more." I left him with that and entered my room.

Once inside I changed out of my robes into more casual clothes, then decided halfway through to wash myself a bit before bed. I used the basin of scented water at one corner of my chambers and cupped the fluid into my hands and scrubbed at my face. There was a cloth next to the basin, which I wet, and used to drag across my limbs and torso, until I felt clean.

By the time I'd redressed and pulled my hair aside, twisting it into a slapdash braid, the wine's effects on me were at its peak and I found myself incredibly tired. I started to feel the chill of my dark and unwarmed room so I walked over to the fire place. I threw some small planks of wood into the ashes, but I didn't have the patience to light it the standard way.

I stared at my hands for a few minutes, contemplating how cold I was. I was reluctant to use my magic. Was I stubborn enough to freeze all night long? Or would I give in, be weak, like everyone thought me? I gnashed my teeth at the sensitive pricks of emotions that smoldered away, locked tight inside my heart. I don't know how to explain it, but every since the day Alistair and Arl Eamon told me that I couldn't be queen because I was a mage, I felt irrationally upset about the fact. Simply, I had never been so underrated or judged or prejudiced than that moment, when it came to the fact that I was mage. It hurt more than usual, because it didn't come from ignorant strangers, or people who simply didn't understand or know me. It had come from the man I loved and a man I'd risked my life to save. People who knew I worked to be good, who I had proved to time and time again that I was perfectly sane and uncorrupted.

The stubbornness not to use my magic arose from recent observations. Their criticism stung me. Not to mention how Orlais and Fereldan adored Celene, with all her normality. I could be just as human and normal. My magic wasn't an illness, it was a special skill, that I could use at will, and that didn't control me or make me spiritually and morally weak. I wanted them to know it, to witness it. But, in the end, who was bound to notice? It was all useless. How long could I deny something in myself, that built up inside me, begged to be used, practiced and controlled?

Giving in, as always, I called forth the familiar energy I could always feel pulsing through my blood. It was more of a living and breathing, insubstantial energy that sung to me, and overpowered me in some sense, before I cultivated it into the form I wished it to take. I extended my limb over the wood, closed my eyes, formed the image of a fire in my mind–as if willing it to be–and when I opened my eyes, the flames were dancing over my fingers, twisting around themselves, its heat licking across the surface of my skin, yet, not burning me.

I marveled at the magic flooding to my one hand, straight from my heart, from deep inside my chest and mind, flowing through me with each throb of my pulse, from a source that seemed endless and too deep inside me to ever die out. How long had I kept with that stupid no-magic notion? Too long, obviously, for the rush of the magic I'd thought to bury caused me to smile, and seemed to draw out of me all my previous dark thoughts and hatred and short temper.

I tossed the flames into the fireplace and watched with satisfaction as the wood caught fire and turned into a inferno of heat, ghosting against my thighs. The colors of red and orange and yellow lapping over the stone.

A low whistle cut through the air like a thunderclap. "That never ceases to amaze me."

The voice came from behind me, in the direction of the doorway, and I clenched my hands into fists in an effort to resist jumping or crying out in my startlement. _The Hero of Fereldan shouldn't be jumpy_, I had thought, clenching my jaw, then working to loosen it.

I could not have mistaken that voice even if forced myself to. Agitation stirred inside my chest, but was buried underneath a bleak wave of pleasure and selfish, smug, satisfaction. It was with those emotions I knew, truly, wine was not becoming of me at all.

I kept my eyes trained on the fire, but a small piece of my heart was screaming for me to turn around. The logical, duty-devoted pieces of my mind demanded I ordered him from my room that instance. I parted my lips, thinking I should. "Alistair..." I murmured, softly, "you should be downstairs.. you should be enjoying the feast."

Duty first, always. It was all I knew. I had a duty to live in a tower for my whole life, and then my duty was to save Fereldan. Both of those I'd done to my fullest effort. So why did he torment me like this? How could he come to me, standing in my room with me, alone, knowing that I had those responsibilities, yet..

I screwed my eyes shut. I felt a momentary flood of unease that the one time I decided to use magic, he'd witnessed it, and he'd said.. I opened my eyes again, and turned my head only, chin tilted downward, resting near my shoulder. "Amaze?" I asked.

Alistair chuckled, and I lowered my face even more, as I heard him waltz closer. I waited for the familiar clanking of his armor, but then I recalled that he was wearing the clothes of a aristocrat, not a warrior or a Templar. It saddened me further; the reminder that we weren't within the old days, the good ones, when we'd spent every willing and unwilling moment together.

_Maker give me strength, _I thought, when he was just a pace behind me, and I drew my eyes up to look at him.

"Amaze," he echoed me, and I could see he was smiling. "Dazzle me. Delight me. Astonish me. You know, those kinds of things. Or at least, that's what I meant." Alistair faltered, his eyes casting to the side in an awkward pause, as he considered his words for loopholes or false meanings. When he found none, his eyes returned to mine and his smile widened into a confident grin.

It was Alistair alright.

I turned my face back toward the fire, no longer suspiciously peeking at him over my shoulder. Most people would take that as an invitation to leave, but Alistair merely shouldered over to the other side of the fire and looked into it as though I were staring at something of interest, or as though he found something within the flames to marvel at.

I shifted, uncomfortable, at his proximity. I wasn't in my best state of mind. The smugness of the fact that he was even here proved that. Alistair came to me, even after he'd seen me kissing Zevran. Perhaps he came for that sole reason, hoping to prevent anything that might have followed the kiss. He came despite the fact that most would expect him reluctant to leave his new wife's side on their wedding night for one single moment. Merely, _he came_.

I fought the smile trying to climb onto my face and knew the instant that Alistair glanced at me he would see my internal and external war. I tilted my face away from him, so he wouldn't. Besides, all that aside, he was tempting, in the light of the fire, me deprived from human contact for half a year, until that night, when Zevran roused the need with one simple kiss; it clawed at me from the inside, worse than the magic. I burned to touch his face... to cradle it between my hands, so I could press my lips– _no_. Tera! Maker! _Oh Andraste, give me strength. I need strength._

I banished the thoughts as best as my memory allowed, and stood straighter, my knuckles whitening as my hands balled tighter, fisting the fabric of my tunic between my fingers. Alistair noticed and he squinted down at me, concern in his eyes. He leaned into the stones that made up the fire place, unknowingly provoking me, as the muscles tensed and stretched beneath the embroidered fabric of his shirt, the hem rising to show slivers of his hip bones.

I tilted my chin further from the sight.

There was a short awkward silence where I couldn't quite find words; since I was so at odds with my desire for him to stay, my satisfaction that he'd come, and my need to tell him to leave, to remind him, through my fuzzy sense of right, that he was a married man now. Our decision to split was more important tonight than any other. But he knew that, so why had he come?

Finally he spoke, "I saw you leave and... so abruptly. I-I thought maybe something was the.."

"The matter?" I asked, my tone strenuously calm. I looked to his face, then and fought a shudder, when he met my stare. We both knew that he saw Zevran, and he would not mention it, not rise to jealousy; or at least, I'd never seen him jealous. I found myself suddenly very unconcerned about duty.

Alistair nodded at my words, closing his mouth and I had an urge to hit him, but only because his stuttering reminded me of those days before we had admitted our love for each other and he was always turning into a mess in front of me. Was that what he was doing now? I mushed my lips together and wrung my hand into the tunic further, thinking.

"Nothing is the matter," I replied, short and to the point, "I'm just dandy." All the resentment and guilt toward him, wasn't there, it was somehow lost in the fire, out of me, pushed away by the wine. I couldn't blame him, even though earlier it was so hard _not_ to blame him. "You should go back."

"Would you be alright with that?" Alistair asked. Something moved underneath his expression; an emotion I didn't quite catch. "You look like you need a friend. I shouldn't leave you alone. I could stay."

_No, _I thought, _you can't._

"I'll be fine. I-" _Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say it._ "I won't be alone."

Alistair looked around the room as though there was someone there to find. "You won't?" he asked.

_Not really_, I wanted to say,_ please stay_. But I knew better. "Go back," I said, hastily trying to make up for my running mouth and those stupid words I'd meant for inflicting jealousy in him. After all, it wasn't me who got to return to a bed with a beautiful woman in it, and it seemed right to lash out at him, telling him I'd have an equally beautiful man in my bed. "You shouldn't have come in the first place."

There was silence and I waited–prayed–to hear his retreating footsteps. The Maker wasn't listening to me, though, as evidently, the sound never came. Not like it had all those nights ago. In the place of what should have been Alistair's retreating footsteps was a strong hand grabbing me at the elbow.

Alistair's fingers clenched around my arm for but a moment, before they loosened their grip and glided upward, dancing across my bicep, skimming over the flesh, fingering the sleeve of my tunic once he reached his destination. He had his eyes focused on the motion of his hand, but his words were directed at me. "I never trusted Zevran," he said. "Not really."

"He would never hurt me," I said, straying from the real topic. "He's proved that he wouldn't kill–"

"That's... not what I'm afraid of," Alistair said, haltingly.

_What are you afraid of? _I almost asked, regarding him sharply. He still wouldn't look at me. There was a pinch of pink in his cheeks, as if he were uncomfortable. I stilled completely when the fingers traveled timidly from my sleeve to my collar, knuckles brushing the soft skin of my throat.

I could almost feel him silently pleading me to speak.

"I–"

"You–"

Both our eyes flew up to meet when we spoke, tapering into a befuddled silence, in order to hear the other speak. I felt an amusement rise in me, and I was unconsciously leaning into his hand as it shifted to move aside my braid, his fingers gliding up the side of my neck, until his palm was melding into the side of my cheek.

I closed my eyes. "Go back," I whispered, for the third time. Three was a lucky number. Maybe he'd listen that time. Would he perhaps sense my unspoken _please_ that should have been tacked on the end?

"Tera," Alistair whispered, "I don't want you kissing other men."

I find myself looking up into his face; a surge of upset causing me to give into the urge to meet his stare, but it faltered underneath the mixture of emotions I found in his expression. He wasn't bossing me around, but rather telling me a true fear he had.

"Am I supposed to be alone forever?" I demanded, eyebrows furrowing. I pulled away my face and his hand dropped. "You can marry, but I'm not allowed to be with anyone? Even if they make me happy?"

"No," Alistair said hurriedly. "No, I mean. That's.. I don't want you to. This isn't a kingly order or anything. I wouldn't boss you around. You know how.. unleaderly I am. That's not what I meant. And I'm not really married.. not like that. You know. Don't you?"

As always, I was unable to stay mad at him; the anger faded at his fumbling response to my raising voice. "Do I?" I said, shaking my head and moving to turn away from him. However, again, Alistair caught me, that time by stepping closer and using both hands to cup my face.

He forced me to meet his eyes. "I'm not good at words, or talking, or just.. _this_ in general." His thin smile was sheepish and uncertain. "I mean, you saw the wreck I was before my war speech. Or, well, the first time I met you and messed that up, too. What I'm trying to say is that, _yes_. As in, yes, you should know. That I'm not really married in the sense that I want to be..? I need to be. So.. it's like.." Alistair couldn't find the word for several seconds, offsetting his lips with thought before it clicked and his eyes brightened, his voice raising. "It's like I'm not king anymore. Celene will take care of Fereldan, now, 'cause she's good at that. Leading and stuff. I'll have more time off, I could spend it with you. I could go to the new Warden Keep and help you there, doing what Duncan would have wanted–"

I raised a hand and clapped it over his mouth. Alistair arched an eyebrow at me, mumbling something unintelligible against my fingers. I shushed him. "You can't say that to me," I said, eyes searching his, desperately wanting to hear the rest, but scared. Cautious to the fact that I couldn't trust his words, not because I couldn't trust him, but I couldn't trust the world to allow it. Something would change it, mess it up. I was certain. "Please, don't lie to me again, Alistair."

Hurt rose in his eyes and his hands cupping my face pulled me nearer him, his thumbs stroking the edges of my cheeks, and I closed my eye from the sight. I let my hand fall from his lips. "I hate this," Alistair whispered.

"_You_ hate this?" I asked, sputtering slightly, screwing my eyes shut further. I could feel my anger rise to the surface, resent bubbling in my blood along with a surge of energy that sung to me, for freedom. I tasted the harsh words on my tongue, but I swallowed them and said, "I hate–" What did I hate? Him? Them? Everyone? Myself? Magic? The Circle? The world?

I was wordless for several bemused moment before I made a sound at the back of my throat and I pushed myself to my toes, closing the distance between our faces, until his lips were above mine.

Alistair tasted better than Zevran. His mouth was like the give a peach against my mouth, soft and lingering and undemanding. I felt myself rise and fall to his every move; the hands drawing me closer to him, his body meeting mine. Us, rolling to the side until my back hit the side of the fireplace, his tongue probing my lips, our legs tangling together, slipping around each other until his rested between mine, and his knee rose to add pressure in a place that should have been left well untouched.

I was snapped back to reality at the clattering, metal sound of something hitting the floor when my hands went to his hair, fingernails trailing over his scalp. It was his crown, crashing into the ground. I broke the kiss by turning my face up, away from his, and then resting my head against the wall, looking up into his bewildered eyes.

I couldn't decide who was wrapped around who. Was he pushing me into the wall, or was I pulling him into it? Had I draped my legs around his and drew him in, or had he wrapped both his legs around one of mine? All I knew was that whatever we were doing, it had to stop. I had to think clearly. Alistair was a married man, no matter how much he'd said he wasn't. To the kingdom Celene was his wife and queen and I was the Hero of Fereldan, his Grey Warden Commander, nothing more. I refused to be his mistress before and I wouldn't give into it then... but, oh, Andraste, he was a good kisser.

With his sweet breath mingling with mine it was hard to believe I found my self control. I started to pull away from him, because I knew closeness was the last thing I needed. The heat of his body would reach out to me, far more than the fire, like a promise of comfort, and I had to resist.

I made to get away, but there was no escape with the wall behind me. Alistair caught my frantic gaze and he looked so conflicted–I couldn't tell if he would be running from the room anytime soon or if he would be staying–and yet they were captivating, in a way that stung like ice; his pain and frustration was clear. Their coloring was the same as I remembered; resembling the grayed, soaring blue skies I had glimpsed once, when we had climbed the mountains, in search of the Ashes of Andraste.

Panic arose in me, looking for an exit, and I thought for one moment I would have to force him away from me. Would I really burn him? Or possibly shock him? No, not if I was set on proving myself as a mage who could control herself.

"You're my real queen," he said to me. "Always."

"You.. you don't have to–"

"I wanted to marry you. I thought.. well I thought you wanted to. Morrigan made fun of me everyday about it. She, er, caught me practicing a proposal. Got a good laugh out of it, and then she helped me a bit. I know. I couldn't believe it either. It was.. weird of her. Creepy daughter of Flemeth helping me of all people with an engagement attempt?" He paused, pondering. "Maybe I shouldn't point that out. I'm trying to convince you here, and that's not really–"

"Alistair," I said, but he didn't acknowledge it.

"What I really mean to say is that, I'd always imagined it different. Kind of like how I was saying before you shut me up. And I didn't mean to lie to you, that was.. hurt, but you've always known how to rip off the bandage real fast, haven't you? Always admired that in a person. Which, means I admire you, if you'd not.. guessed–"

"Alistair," I tried again and that time his eyes caught mine. "Shut up."

"Why?" he asked. "Was I rambling again? I'm sorry. I always–"

"Maker's breath!" I said, forgetting my earlier escape attempt. "You've made your point."

Alistair overlooked my face, every inch of it, as though searching for something. "What is it that you hate, Tera?" he asked me.

I stuttered. "I..." What did I hate? "I hate this. I hate the guilt and the endless blame game. I hate the way you look at me across the courtyard. I hate Celene with her stupid blonde hair and her stupid title. I hate the Circle. Templars, too. I hate the fact that I'm sad about the Blight being over, because now I can't be with you, and all our friends. I hate that I miss Morrigan and Oghren and nights at camp eating your.. _awful_ cooking.." A smile played on his lips, and my voice softened. "I hate the war between my heart and brain, whether to stay or flee..."

"You should stay," Alistair decided, staring imploringly into my eyes. One of his hands moved from my face and buried itself into my hair, and the other shifted to brush the back of his knuckles along my cheekbone. "You should be queen. Throughout the whole wedding I was imaging you at my side, where you've always been. Where you belong. I mean, can you imagine what would have happened if you _weren't_ there after Ostagar?"

I smiled then. "You'd be lost somewhere, without pants?"

"And Fereldan would be nothing but a creepy darkspawn breeding ground."

_What are we doing? _I thought. _Why are we doing this? Saying these things? _I took a deep, shuddering breath and all the air rushed out of me in a long sigh moments later. "It's far, far too late for this, Alistair."

"Is it?" he inquired sadly.

He leaned closer and I could not tell anyone why that didn't bother me. It should have perturbed me a lot. After all, we'd been separated for six months, and throughout those months we'd always maintained an acceptable conduct. There was no touching, and no talks.. nothing like what was happening. We had never discussed us, or marriage, or queenship. That was all unmentioned, even the night before the end of the war and we had cut it off, no questions asked.

I hadn't realized all the things that were left unsaid, until then.

Still, where was our control? Why couldn't I feign disinterest as I had before, almost a hundred time? Why couldn't Alistair just... but maybe the real problem was that I didn't want him to... it was the wedding night, I had watched him tie himself.. and I'd lost him completely.. and I couldn't...

Perhaps, we had no control, because all we both truly wanted was for our strengths to fail each other..

"I don't know," I answered him, and I knew that it wasn't.

He was pushing down my walls, peeling them away one by one, and I couldn't think to resist him. I didn't truly want to. I had already shorn away his walls, his resistance. "I..." he began and the sudden intensity in his eyes gave way to the words he wanted to say.

"Please– _don't,"_ I begged, but I knew it was a lost cause.

"I still love you, Tera, just as strongly as before. Celene... she is–"

I could not allow him to finish the sentence, so I pressed my lips to his.

Just as before, when our lips connected, we lost all sense of restraint or thought; it was a instinctual action to throw ourselves into the kiss, all semblance of opposition–if one ever claimed there had been any to start with–shattered, and fell around us without care. When we touched, there was only his hands, lips, tongue, and teeth, that mattered.

Said hands slid down from my face and gripped my hips, his body crashing against mine. Plastered against me, as he was, I still ached to be closer, and I tightened my arms about his shoulders, pressing myself firmly against every aspect of him. He groaned into my mouth. His hips rocked against mine once, then twice.

It was like we were back at camp. I could hear the sound of a hound barking in the background. The crackling fire beside us only made it more realistic. I lost myself to the fantasy; it was a dream to me, spinning on the precarious, drunken ledge, pushing my limits and, yet underneath I knew I was being weak; a weak moment, that was all these kisses were.

And every dream must end. Sometimes in nightmare.

"_Ahem."_

The sound sent a thrill of terrorizing emotions through me. I tore myself away from Alistair. His hands fell away from my body. We both whirled around to the open door and the guilt leaped up from the burning pit in the center of my stomach, to my throat, as Arl Eamon's worn and strict face bore straight into mine from the hallway beyond my room.

I was too stunned initially to react, but Alistair jumped quickly to looking sheepish. His hand reached at the back of his neck and he fought–failed–to keep the flush of scarlet from his face. "A-Arl Eamon!" he exclaimed.

My rushed, scattered, and completely stupid–_stupid, stupid, stupid_–emotions were sliced away as though Arl Eamon had come into the room harboring a sword, cutting away the intimacy, and like blood welling up to take the place of slashed skin, other feelings rose to the surface; guilt, shame, and a good hearty dose of humiliation, replacing all of them.

I should have had known better... we _both_ knew better.

"Alistair," Eamon snapped, his voice harsh. I stared at the two. Words failed me and an intense need to flee was eating away at me like a ravenous hunger. Never in all my days as the Hero of Fereldan had I ever felt so small or meek as I did then, standing underneath Eamon's forbidding glare. "You two have–"

"Do not blame him," I interrupted. "Please, I have been terrible these past few days. With the others... and then... i-it's with me where the blame lies." Alistair looked back and forth between us, ready to speak against me, but Eamon got there first.

"I do not care where the blame lies," said Eamon, and even though he was upset I could see him softening some. "This just _cannot _be happening around here. I knew Alistair's father.. and he had many of these same encounters." Alistair's head dipped lower, remembering exactly what had come of his father's indiscretions. "Alistair is our king and he has a new queen. We do not need mistresses, mucking up his good nam–"

"I am not his mistress!" I objected. I knew all about the rumors of me being the king's whore and I had not tolerated them. Yet, that scene only made me seem even more like it..

Maker, I'm pathetic.

Eamon didn't seem to notice the sudden dispirited and hopeless look that flitted across my expression, and said, "I know you aren't, Tera, and I'd like to keep it that way, as I'm sure Celene would, too."

I tried to come up with a reasonable reply. "It won't. I would never. I-I... It was a weak moment only."

He gave me a hard look. "We cannot afford weak moments. Not with this, and not at this bad time."

The guilt was burning through me like the magic then. They moved in intermixing patterns through my veins, slowly ebbing together, turning into chagrined anger. I could hardly bare it. I had just kissed a married man. A king of my homeland, who had just forged a delicate marriage to cure it. Everything we worked for might have had been pushed over a ledge; and if not, then all I'd done would inspire those rumors about me. I'd made Eamon's job harder and, no doubt, I had ruined all of Alistair's carefully built barricades against me.

Who was _I_ to ruin everyone's happiness?

The two men seemed to be having a silent conversation with their eyes. I was disincluded and I did not wish to know what it was they were both thinking. I could have guessed, but it didn't mean I wanted to know. "Go," I said, my voice sounding hollow, even to me. They swung their gazes to me, but I turned my back to them, arms crossing over my chest, eyes trained on the fire. "Go," I repeated, louder. "Leave! Get out! _Please_."

Unlike last time, Alistair did leave. Maybe it was the please, or perhaps it was the anger that made my voice shake. I hunched my shoulder against the want to turn back to him and thank him for all the things he had said. I didn't care about that, as long as I could hear him walking out the door.

Eamon stayed behind a minute longer. "Brighten up, Warden. You are so gloomy, it gives a bad impression. I have already received concerned words for it. They are asking if you disapprove of the choice in queen. Or that you fear for Fereldan now that we welcome the Orlais back to us. Let's not raise further questions... yes?"

I sneered. _Of course, yes, let's take away my right of expressing how I feel, on top of everything else._ What next? "I'll do what I want," I said venomously. "Now, get out."

"You're a Grey Warden," Eamon said, softly. "Not queen. You have betters to lis–"

I was stung into shouting, disbelieving that he'd just felt the need to point that out to me. "I know who and what I am!" I swiveled around to stare at him with burning eyes. "I don't need to be constantly pushed into my place, Eamon, my thanks. I'm not in charge anymore. You've made that very clear."

"Except you don't seem to know," he retorted, rising to the argument. He'd been holding those words back, evidently, by the prided contortion of his face. "You walk around as if you're still in charge. You speak out more than you should. You were the one to propose the marriage, that was far beyond your place. I've never seen you address our king as 'Your Majesty' and you sure don't treat him as your better. Celene is insulted by your behavior. She takes regal matters to heart, and you lack a harsh amount of manners and common sense. She has.." But the arl seemed to remember himself, and cleared his throat, straightening as tall as the old man he was, could.

"What?" I spat. He'd called me stupid, mannerless, and accused me of disrespecting our king already. Why stop there? "What did Celene do, Eamon?"

"She has mentioned the possibility that you should be returned to the Circle."

"_What?" _I cried without thinking. I didn't know what I'd been expecting for him to say, but that was surely not one of the things I'd even thought.. or considered... Maker, forbid.. please no. "I can't. You wouldn't.. Alistair would never let that.." I felt like a girl again, terrified of the tower's height, encased in the stone walls, claustrophobia gripping me as sharp as claws, hooked through my chest. My face fell flat from its anger and I almost reached out at the arl. "She doesn't have a say in that."

"She does," Eamon said, solemnly. "She plans on bringing the idea to the court's full attention within the month, and between the king and the noblemen, and the arls, we should see which way the decision swings."

I stared at him, uncomprehending, trying to figure out if he'd really said that to me. When I decided it was true, that he was not jesting with me, I felt my face close over. "I won't let it happen."

"You don't have a say, Warden."

"I'd rather die than go back to the Circle."

Eamon bowed his head at me, no comment. "Good night, Warden," he said, then was gone.

I was left there, reeling for more than one reason. I stood unmoving by the fire for hours, replaying what he'd said to me, what Alistair had told me, savoring those kisses, and listening to the castle settle down around me. I heard the guests returning back to their rooms. I watched the fire devour the wood, and before the flames could die I tossed it more fuel. I listened to the wind against the palace walls. I stood there for so long, staring, I felt as though the inferno had left the impressions of its flickering orange and reddening yellows into my irises, branded there.

Once I finished mulling over what had happened earlier, I reviewed my terrible lack of restraint, my horrible sense of conduct, the fact that I was mannerless, and also, my inability to watch that marriage, and to sit by my companions of war while I did it.

After all that, I assessed my insane refusal to go back to the Circle. They wouldn't lock me up, because I wouldn't let them. Celene could try all she wanted, and she could sway all the arls and noblemen onto her side, but even if she overruled Alistair in the decision, I wouldn't let it happen. I would fight them. I would run before I was shoved back into the hands of Templars, never allowed outside, to feel the grass or wind, or sunshine.

Yet, the more I thought about it, the more it seemed it would happen.

I wasn't a favorite of any arl, not even Eamon, it seemed. Celene had no reason to like me; it wasn't common knowledge that it'd originally been me who brought her here. I was guilty of loving her husband and her husband loving me back. She could convince my homeland I was dangerous, that I might be their hero, but imagine, what if something upset the mage that'd destroyed the Archdemon? What if she snapped or got tempted into a deal with a spirit in the Fade?

No, it wouldn't be hard to lock me away, at all.

I could kiss goodbye my life. All those days I had spent, all those careless, laughing times Alistair and I were traveling along a dirt road, unbathed and bloody, and I had slunk up to his side, slipped my hand into his and though Morrigan made a sound of disgust and Shale pretended not to understand–I knew they could see it, too. The wedding, the happiness.. the future.

A future that will never exist.

Not if they roped me back into the tower.

Just after we killed the Archdemon I remembered the rush that overtook me. How I'd run to all my companions, wind swept, blood covered, and grinning like a loon as I threw my arms around Sten's shoulders and kissed Leliana's face and spun in a circle clinging to Zevran's arm, nudging Morrigan and Alistair, laughing when Wynne inquired after my health... I remembered the rush, and I had proclaimed loudly to them how free I felt. I wasn't in a tower anymore, nor was I plagued with dreams of an Archdemon who was out to destroy my homeland. I wanted to travel, to live a life I'd never been given. I was relieved I'd actually done it, all my duties, miraculously over. I had sung with Oghren, boasting about seeing the world.

I couldn't do that if I was locked away again, but I couldn't actually go freely, even without Eamon's recent threat in mind. They needed me here. Alistair wanted me to help him command the kingdom, though not as his queen, but as his second and as Fereldan's Grey Warden Commander. I had duties here, new ones, responsibility upon responsibility, people to take care of and land to watch.

And maybe I would have felt bad or reluctant to drop said responsibilities, if I wasn't so sure that in vise versa, they would be letting me go without second thought. If they could survive without me when Celene locked me away, than they could survive without me if I ran.

Hadn't I done enough for them anyway? Hadn't I given them more then they already expected from anyone? I ended their Blight, revived their corrupted royalty, and reorganized the Grey Warden organization. They could at the very least give me freedom.

It truthfully didn't matter if they would give it to me, because it was what I would do. I could lay low for a couple years, surely. I could explore new places with a different name. Somewhere my face was unrecognizable. I'd come back, maybe. Maybe all I needed was to be free of Alistair and I could learn to move on.

The plan built easily in my mind.

I detached myself from the fire in a whirl, going around the room, shoving all my things into my pack. I pulled the tunic over my head and found my magi robes. I scribbled out a note saying exactly what I was doing; _gone traveling, I will return soon_ –though soon refers too, as soon as I've forgotten what Alistair looked like, and once the kingdom forgot the need to lock me up. I placed the message across my bed linens, knowing a servant would find it, or Leliana when she came to me with her hang over cure.

I paused to peer out the hallway beyond my room, picking up my staff from the chest by the door. I decided that it'd be better safe than sorry, so I slung it across my back, before pulling on a hooded cloak, drawing the covering over my face, then slipping through the castle in silence.

Getting passed the guards was easy, but once outside the cold breeze slapped me across the face. The storms weren't as bad as they were, making travel possible for the wedding, but no one should have wanted to willingly go outside.

However fierce, it was refreshing in contrast to the fire.

As I walked further into Denerim streets my eyes were constantly casting upward, towards the throngs of burning silver stars, just barely visible behind a mask of gray clouds. Even they reminded me of the past year spent outside almost every chance there was. I reveled in the feel of the night then, breathing for what seemed the first time in six months. I allowed the wind to tug at my hair before I reached up and twisted it into that side braid I had been prone to using.

Despite the chill of the night seeping through my robes, skin, and bones, coiling in my joints, I didn't shiver or shake; I pulled the energy forward in my blood, resting at the surface of my skin, warm, and lost between a substantial flame and nothing. I could only really pinpoint the magic in my hands, as I was taught, so there was no actually flame, but rather a weak wisp of it lingering over my entire body.

If anything, going outside only strengthened my wish to run away. I'd always hated being cooped up. The palace was no exception. I belonged outside, I lived for it. Ever since my years in the Circle of Magi, I had been made to crave freedom. Being there was no different, trapped within stone walls, forced to listen to the infuriating sound of my footsteps echoing back at me, and of course, forced to obey rules. If I hadn't wanted to be locked away again the moment Eamon conveyed the possibility, once I was outside, I understood I _really_ would have rather of died then go back.

I was claiming back my freedom, something I never truly had, and it was hard to wrap my head around, nor understand the consequences. All I knew was that I liked the feeling. I smiled. I felt my shoulders relax and the knot of emotions in my chest and stomach loosened. The further I continued down the street toward the city's gate, the less I felt obligated to go back to Alistair, or to say goodbye.

_Freedom, _I thought, _was something I loved more than him._

As I neared the gate I tightened my cloak around my shoulders. I tucked the hood around my face, hunching into the fabric against the misted rain that had begun to fall, and repeated the Maker's good name in my thoughts as I passed. The guards hadn't even lifted their heads to regard me from their place inside their guard house, safe from the weather.

Once passed it, beyond city walls, I looked about myself and then picked up pace. As fast walking turned into a light jog down the muddied, slippery path, I tried to completely let go of what I was leaving behind. I tried to shake myself of the old status 'Hero of Fereldan' and embrace the commoner in me. I convinced myself that Fereldan would be fine without me. Alistair had Celene, an empress, and queen, and I needed my own life. I wasn't going to risk my freedom by staying in Denerim.

Briefly, I wondered if that was what Eamon wanted. Had he meant that argument as a warning? Was he trying to tell me to make a run for it, by letting me in on the fact that Orlais meant to reinforce the rules of the Order?

Whether he meant it that way or not, I was gone. Off to find my own life. One far more simple and far easier than before. My jog turned into an all out run, diverging from the road, throwing myself passed the nearest tree line, lost in the tangle of bark and greenery and shadow.


	3. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Dragon Age, 9:34 – Act II: year six –_ future_

I existed in a state of half-waking for hours. I felt the real world around me, cold and damp against my skin, the ground hard, my legs sprawled awkwardly out in front of my body as I slumped against the rocky wall. Where I really was, mentally, was the Fade, as I reached out for it and pulled myself deeper through the Veil between the two different worlds. I willingly fled to the unknown in my unconsciousness, the pain too much for me to bare. Every time my body clenched and contracted I would cry out, digging my fingers into the dirt and throwing my head back against the cave wall in my agony. It was too much; and I found myself in a different place, without pain, where around me I heard the faint rasping whispers of Fade spirits, reaching toward me as much as I reached for them in my moment of splitting, weakening pain.

I was somewhere in the strange, wasteland and spacious, setting the Fade usually supplied. There was dirt colored ground underneath my feet and strangely shaped, purpled figures all around, few plants, lyrium sources that were pulsing blue, the likes. I'd only been to the Fade a handful of times, and not anytime recent; I had not been to the Fade since Fereldan and the Blight. To say I was surprised would be as true as of how _pleased _I was.

I sank to my knees in the Fade, disconnected from the real world and I clutched to the setting in spirit. I wanted to stay and not go back. I wasn't strong enough to handle the pain, the consequences of my ignorance, my stupidity. I nearly wept at the thought of what was happening to my body back where I left it. I abandoned my own body in its time of need and I was sickened by that, but not enough to return to it and find help.

I was so exhausted I could barely think, let alone take note of what was taking place about me. I recalled the last few days, a mixture of hair pulling stress and fighting for my life, which really, when wasn't that a reality?

Around me I heard a call of my name, distorted and echoed as if a dream. I lifted my head and found a figure, shadowed and far, half hidden from my sight by a strange and demonic statue made of bronzed gold. I reached for my staff, but was stunted when I realized I didn't have one.

"Tera," the voice said, and it changed from the strange huskiness, to a familiar voice.

I rose slowly from my kneeling position, grappling for composure, a hand resting against my side, where the pain had been ripping through me moments before. "Jowan?" I whispered.

I flinched inwardly at the sight of the man who slipped around the statue and approached me, as though floating in air. "It's me, Tera," said the being wearing my childhood friend's face. "I've missed you."

"I killed you," I said.

Jowan's face looked perplexed. "No you didn't, Tera. I'm right here. You must have had a nightmare, or something." His face relaxed into a smile as he reached me and placed a hand on my shoulder. I dipped away from his touch, my head turning the cogs far too slowly. "You wouldn't kill me, I trust you. We're best friends. I was the one who pulled the Templar off you when you were fourteen and he–"

"How do you know about that!" I hissed, taking a step away. "Only Jowan.." and it seemed silly for me to miss him then, when he was from a time so far away; a time of no complications.. that was until he started to date that woman and then.. the blood magic.. "You're a demon," I concluded.

The desire demon twisted Jowan's face into a confused scowl, before it opened his mouth, speaking words strange and compelling. "What are you talking about? I'm Jowan."

"No," I said, less sure. I shook my head and staggered back from the demon, only for it to follow me. I called forth the energy in my blood, cultivating a flame in my hand and I flung it at the approaching demon, but the demon easily sideswiped it.

"I knew Jowan," whispered the being, as I turned and looked about myself for an exit. Nothing seemed real or graspable in this world, every edge seemed soft, all objects were blurred and surreal. I took off down the nearest path, ducking beneath floating masses of rocks and drawing all the lerium I could from the veins as I passed. "I was his friend."

"No," I snarled, pausing in my fleeing when I reached a fork. Behind me I knew the desire demon would keep pace, but I had hoped to find a portal or another being, possibly just a weapon other than my bare hands. I knew already I wouldn't flee to the mortal world; I wouldn't go back. "_I_ was Jowan's friend."

"You never gave him what I did. I gave him power. I let him taste the true potential of all mages."

"He was a blood mage, offering up his mortality to demons like you and giving you a chance to reach beyond the Veil. He betrayed his.. he betrayed all mages when he became a blood mage. And he betrayed me."

I chose the right of the fork, but what seemed like a path was only an illusion. I moved headlong into what seemed to be a solid wall, throwing me away from it onto my backside. When I made to go the other way, I was already too late, and I almost ran straight into the desire demon.

I opened my hand and called forth a _zing_ of lightning. I hit her in the chest, causing her to stagger. At my attack she dropped her guise and what replaced Jowan was a being just as strange as the Fade around me; horned, half clothed, enthralling and disgusting all at once.

She was patently more patient than most demons as when she righted herself and saw me braced for a fight, she smiled, sadly, and I saw that her teeth were rimmed with light. "I can give you what you most desire, Tera."

"I don't desire anything from you," I said.

"You desire love, I can feel it. You want acceptance, someone who won't judge you for what you are.." the demon ghosted closer and I leaned away, raising my hand in threat. "You want unconditional."

Already, my head was beginning to clear, the exhaustion and after effects of the pain were fading, along with her own powers that were meant to deceive me. What she was saying rubbed me the wrong way, it didn't captivate me. "I have unconditional. Varric is the _best_ friend I could ever ask for. Aveline has never once left my side in all the..."

"_Loyalty," _the demon sang. "You've always had loyalty. What you crave is affection."

I'd heard enough of the demon's word at that point and I called forth another wave of magic. In my mind I imagined the coldness of the cave, recalled the feeling of snow, the form of frost. Slowly, but surely, the magic stung frigidly across my palm and I flung the wave of conjured ice at her.

"Tera!" I frowned at the voice that flew from her mouth. The demon threw up her arms in defense, then shuddered, changed.. until I felt a white hot rage at what she was showing me. Alistair's face stared down at me, cuts along his cheeks and neck from the ice wave, horror and pain in his eyes. "Why did you leave me? I needed you."

"You're a bitch," I said and threw everything I had at her. I started off with all the standard attacks, cutting at her sides and ducking the few blows she was managing to get in. Throughout the fight she kept up the Alistair charade, crying out at me, begging me to stop with his voice, unknowingly driving me to such furiousness that when I _did_ manage to kill her I thrust my hands around her throat on her last dying breath and squeezed until the life faded from her completely and her face became that of a desire demon again.

It was then, straddling the corpse, hands falling away from her throat, that I felt the presence of a another spirit around me. Not so much that they had made a noise to alert me, or let alone breathed for that matter, but I felt the eyes boring holes into my back.

I turned my head when they said, "Caela."

"Anders!" I threw myself toward him, then stopped mid-way, realizing. "Vengeance..." I said, noting the strange glow of blue coming from his eyes and his form in general. "How did you.."

"No, here, I am Justice again. Anders' mortal anger does not touch me in the Fade. Therefore, he can not morph me into the spirit of Vengeance."

I eyed the being with distrust. "How do I know you're not just another desire demon?"

"Do you desire for Anders?" it asked monotonously.

"I desire a healer," I said matter-of-fact. "How did you find me here? How did you know?"

"Anders found your body in the elven cave," said Justice. "He thought you unconscious, and I knew you to be in the Fade, so I took over and crossed the Veil. Why are you here?"

"I was.." I narrowed my eyes. "I was in pain."

"And you cannot handle your own mortality? Pain is one of the consequences of life. If your body dies while you're still in the Fade, you'll be trapped forever, drowning in the darkness, falling into the cracks between what's real and what's not real."

"I know that," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. "I just needed.."

"Anders can't heal you while you're in the Fade."

"Sure he can."

"Not in the way you need, Caela."

I turned away from Justice, allowing my gaze to travel the distant, shadowed, and stared horizon. "What if I told you I don't want to go back? What if I said that maybe it's better if I die now?"

"That would be the worst injustice I'd ever existed to witness, I would tell you in return."

"Injustice?" I said, pausing. "Probably, to you, yes," I allowed, nodding, and turning my face aside to look over at Justice. "To me what would be wrong is to go back and continue what's been started. That would be the injustice. It would be unfair–"

"To whom?" Justice inquired, with an intensity that only his flat, emotionless voice seemed to possess. "To you? No. You're being selfish. Who are you to decide this?"

"I am the one it is happening to," I said.

"You play the part of the Maker, and that is not your place."

"I never claimed I was the Maker."

"You act as though you are."

Something about what he was saying, for the most peculiar reason, reminded me of an old man I'd not seen in over six years, by the name of Arl Eamon. "Why are you here?" I demanded.

"To bring you back."

"Who are you to decide I should go back?"

Justice deliberated there, as though he'd never stopped to consider that. "Anders doesn't want you to die."

"I am very nearly sure Anders hates me."

"He only hates you because you see him as he is. He is merged with another spirit, mine, and it becomes something unsavory when mixed with his anger. He hates that you're right. And he doesn't want to lose you, as his friend... the only honest one."

"He's never called me a friend before."

"I know his mind, his every thought. Trust me. He thinks of you as his friend."

"Trust a spirit from the Fade?" I retorted. "Why doesn't that feel right?"

Justice moved toward me and extended a hand. "I'll bring you back to the mortal world," he offered. "Is that why you don't leave this place? You don't know how? Anders didn't find any lyrium bottles near your body, so this wasn't a planned trip, I take. All humans are brought to the Fade in their dreams, but only mages remember," he stated, as though I were a student in need of being taught. "Some mages go to the Fade more often than others, at will, but those are rare, and called Dreamers. You're not one. It was your heightened state of anxiety and pain that brought you here. You let the emotions control your actions and your magic, hyped with adrenaline, and you're not safe or in control. If that desire demon was successful in possessing you, what do you think would have become of–"

I nearly gagged at the thought. "Don't," I warned. "That doesn't matter. The demon didn't succeed and I'm perfectly alright... here." I looked around and thought to myself, how had I come here, why had I, other than in my desperate need of escape, and I realized that he was right, that I _didn't_ have any idea how to get back.

I flung out my hand toward Justice and he stepped forward to grip it. I pulled it out of his grasp at the last second, forcing him to meet my hard stare. "You promise me Anders is there to help me?"

"Was there someone else you expected?" asked Justice.

_Yes_, I thought. _He_ should have been there. _He_ should have come in search of me.

"No," I said, and I gripped his hand tightly.

I felt as though I were pulled rapidly downward, and then I hit something solid and real; there was no pain originating from the transition through the Veil, but rather the pain shot instantly through me because my physical body had continued to wither in agony as I'd left it behind. I woke gasping, jerking away from the cave wall, my hands finding the source of my pain and pressing them heavily into my sides as I doubled over.

The first thing I noticed was the sound of rain. The weather had closed in on me as I sought haven in the Fade. Misted rain had surrounded the entrance of the cave for hours before I was pulled away; when I awoke I found that it had thickened into a dense fog that obscured most of the surrounding mountainous area. I blinked and suppressed a groan as I sat up further. Across the cave from me was the slowly wakening form of a man; clearly Anders by his mage robes and his staff, as well as the trademark earring.

He looked stricken for long moments, staring at me with bleary eyes. I wondered for a heartbeat if Justice was sharing with him what had went down in the Fade; had he shown Anders the face of the man the desire demon had chosen to wear? Would he know that was the king of Fereldan? Before I could worry for too long if I'd ruined my false identity, another pain gripped me, stronger than the last and I bent over myself, arms hugging my torso.

I decided I didn't care whether Anders knew if I was Caela Hawke or Tera Amell. "Help," I hissed at him. It seemed to snap him out of his stupor and he crawled across the space to me, looking bewildered and determined at the same time.


	4. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Dragon Age, 9:31 – Act I: year zero – _past_

As I walked, I wondered.

I wondered if I was running away or moving on.

I wondered where I was going and if I would ever turn back.

_Is this my duty I am fulfilling now_, I asked myself, _or is this me finally letting that part of me go?_

I distracted myself with my surroundings. The Coastland near the Waking Sea had always been considered a wild, unruly place. Most would tell their children frightening tales of the Korcari Wilds teeming with wolf packs and creatures beyond their imaginations, such as evil witches, and apostates that slaughtered whole villages at a time. I had heard those same stories from the lips of my mentors within the tower. But the wilds along the Coastland had a different archive of scary tales. Ones that were more reality than fiction. The kind that wove a web of mischief and pirates and highwaymen and slavers.

Just as the tales that surrounded the place, the land was rugged and inconsistent. Random juts of boulders or limestone could be found shooting out of the earth, amidst the rocky soil. Patches of sun soaked sand, stripped bare of trees and shrubs, blotted out the forest here and there. If you weren't lucky you'd stumble upon a cliff, that seemed to come out of no where.

I was half sure those childhood stories were true. If not, than I'd consider it a relief. I was in no mood to come across travelers, let alone pirates or slavers. Somehow I would have preferred running into a pack of unmanageable beasts or mythical creatures. Those were easy. People were difficult and could think, and could look at my face and report their sighting at another time, in a city perhaps called Denerim, who at this early hour was probably waking to find my bed empty.

I was halfway gone already, each step drawing me closer to the Waking Sea, my destination; Gwaren. They would've expected me to go somewhere in Fereldan. If I ran, maybe they'd send word to the tower, or possibly interrogate my companions, such as Leliana or Sten, even Zevran, who had all urged me to leave; Leliana to join her in her return to Orlais, Sten offering me to adopt the ways of the Qun, and Zevran had hinted at returning to Antiva. All of them I'd refused. I'd begun to wonder why.

I'd stayed in the tower throughout my childhood and adolescence because there were laws that stated I could be killed for running. Maybe not the first time I ran, or the second, but eventually, if I was set on being free forever, trying and trying again, they would have executed me. Or, worse, made me tranquil. I was a girl in that tower, I didn't have the means or the experiences to force my way. Though I never did truly make it easy for them to keep me locked up, I was still scared of Templars up until the day Duncan recruited me.

I learned quickly from Duncan what I really had to fear weren't men that drank lyrium and wore fancy armor. Especially since to me Templar Cullen was the representation of what Templars were in my memories. He was the man at my harrowing, the one who'd caught me stealing Jowan's blood vile, the one I'd freed when he was trapped in the corrupted circle. I wondered where he was, then, as I paced passed the Coastland wilds. I wondered if he remembered the wild-eyed mage who'd been nothing before Duncan took her away.

I planned on going to the Free Marches, taking ship in Gwaren. I knew there were many refugees there, from the past year of Blight, but with Orlais opening her arms to Fereldan, I doubted there would be any new comers, who'd stayed long enough to glimpse the face of the Hero of Fereldan within Denerim or throughout her travels. Besides, it was already beyond difficult to find someone from anywhere else who knew the whole truth. Empress Celene had not known the full story, for she came to Fereldan expecting a man named Terrell, with flame colored hair and a ruthless voice. I shuddered to wonder what other stories were out there. I was certain there were ones that said I wasn't a mage, or female, or even human. I'd heard from Oghren that there was a story out there which said I was part dragon. The Free Marches had little to do with Blights, let alone Grey Wardens, or Fereldan for that matter. I thought it would be the only safe place, close, but far, yet that was still in the relative area of the vast world I would never fully travel. Who would look twice at another, late coming, Fereldan refugee?

There was no trouble as of yet with my travels. I took it for a good sign. I'd moved away from the road as soon as I was out of the city, hoping to stray from the paths of merchants or other travelers coming along the North Road. If I wasn't wrong, and certainly I wasn't, there would be a search party sent out to bring me back to Denerim. What I viewed as traveling, they viewed it as desertion. I was abandoning my post as Grey Warden Commander and I was forfeiting my role as second. If I was found, and I didn't cough up a good excuse, would they hold my crimes of treason against me, for turning my back on the king, the kingdom, and my homeland?

I wondered if my other companions would look for me privately, in hopes of joining me again.

I expected that of Leliana, and Oghren especially. Sten, Shale, and Wynne all had their own lives and futures, and they'd worry for me, as I would worry for them if they went missing, but they wouldn't waste time looking for me, when I wasn't wanting to be found. I could not contemplate how Alistair would react. Would he be angry? Would he try to shrug it off? Would he blame me..? Or himself?

I tried to shake the thoughts from my head. I was free. I needed to keep my mind on the present.

The morning was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful Fereldan had seen in a long time. I walked through the land, the twisted, scraggly trees reaching toward the sky with their bent branches, the scarce canopy of leaves swaying in the salty coastal breezes, allowing occasional flashes of hot sunlight to run along my path.

Distantly there was the sound of birds. Everything was still, _for the moment, _aside, perhaps, the rustling shrubbery at my feet. A hare pranced through the line of brush ahead of me, breaking through and into the clear length of a bare strip of earth covered with sand. I waited a moment behind, peering through the little coverage the trees offered, before I decided the clearing was void of danger.

I walked for what seemed hours. Sweat clung my robes to my skin. My pack was beginning to grow heavy, burdened with my coin purse (containing all the money I'd ever earned, which was quite a bit), potions of both health and lyrium, leather armor (in case), knifes, and varies ingredients I'd picked on my way. The sun was drifting toward mid-day. I was just wondering what I would do to feed myself for lunch, when I heard the eerily familiar clash of metal on metal.

I crouched where I was, without thinking, throwing myself to the ground, hand resting against the bark of a nearby tree. I pushed myself against the trunk, sliding around the plant on my haunches. I listened intently. I picked up the sound again. There was sparring, and shouting. Someone was yelling for the fighting to stop, and another person, a man, was shouting... I recoiled, pulling my shoulders up and away, as though affronted. I could recognize the phrases of a Templar, with their chantry inflected words, and their calm, stern voice as they arrested you anywhere.

From where I was, I guessed the noise was coming from quite a way away. A shrill female voice added itself to the mix, and I couldn't decide how many people were at the encounter. I considered heading in that direction, something in me (the same piece of me that stayed with Alistair in the first place, to end the Blight) was tugging at me, telling me I should help, that it was.. no. It wasn't my duty to help people. I was tired of helping people. I already learned where that got me.. heartbroken, pushed to the side, forgotten.

I pulled myself out of a crouch and moved toward the nearest tree. I continued that way, passing tree to tree. To make sure I wasn't heading toward the skirmish, I kept an ear attentive. Though the further away I got, the stronger the tug in my stomach pulled. I felt unease rise in me, then a slight nausea, burning at the back of my throat, a result from guilt.

Why should I have felt guilty? They weren't a concern of mine. I didn't even see them, let alone know them. An apostate belongs in the tower, that was what the chantry taught the world. Who was I to object the words of the Maker? I pondered that, mulling over the fact that I was already going against the wishes of my Maker, of the chantry, my king, and the Templars, that lived to imprison my kind.

I wasn't sure where my thoughts were heading, or where I might of ended up, all I knew was that I heard a ear piercing scream, and before I knew why, I was throwing myself back the way I'd come, diverting to the left, toward the sound.

"No!" cried the shrill voice. "My baby!"

I picked up my pace.

"You murderer!"

"Wesley is no murderer," announced another female voice, that one strong and unwavering.

As I neared I could make out the stark outlines of some five or so figures. One of them was kneeling beside a sixth. A woman of remarkable features, black haired, with a smear of red tattooed across her nose. What was so concerning about that sixth person was the blossom of scarlet running down her abdomen, soaking through her hide armor. Her hands were stained with the blood as she grappled to close the sword wound, two men towering over her.

I looked to these men, drawing against the nearest tree, not too far away that I should feel over arrogant of not being seen, but close enough that I could make out their faces. Both had their swords drawn, one supported a rather unpleasant wound on his neck, and the other had scratches but no fatal lesions. Their blades, both bloodstained, made it impossible to know on glance who'd impaled the woman. That was until I took note to the fact that the one in the Templar armor was speaking. "I was well within the laws. I was attacked–"

"You were trying to arrest my sister!" exclaimed the woman on the ground. But her voice died at the end, turning into a snarl of pain, as she twisted around her wound. The woman kneeling beside her clutched her head to her bosoms.

"Shut up, Melina," said the other man. He had flaming blue eyes for no one but the Templar. He was younger than the Templar, but not much older than Melina, the woman on the ground. (Near my age, if anything.) "I don't see any lawmen out here, Templar," the man spat. "The wilds have their own laws, and I say an eye for an eye." He raised his sword and used it to point at the woman standing behind and to the side of the Templar. "Her."

"What?" the Templar exclaimed, in the exact same time as another. I swung my eyes toward the female voice that mingled with his. It had come from the youngest of the group. She was dark haired and amber eyed, but it was her robes of magi that drew my attention the most.

"Carver, don't do this, please," said the girl, earnestly. She looked beseechingly to the Templar. "We don't want to fight. Let us go. You've already taken.." I could hardly hear it, but I'd thought I heard her mutter, _oh, Maker, _under her breath before continuing, "Let me heal her. Then I'll go with you."

I looked about the group. The Templar was sharing an uncertain glance with the woman at his side. She was a tall, burly ginger with freckles dancing underneath her hard green eyes, that screamed, at least to me (and apparently not this Carver) law enforcer. At the men's feet, the mother (as I presumed her to be, with her similar features to the three, and grayed hair) was muttering assurances to what looked to be her eldest, Melina, who was getting grayer in the face by the second.

"No, Bethany," Carver objected, he stared hard at the girl, then the woman on the ground. If I wasn't imagining, there was a deeper meaning between their stare, as though a transfer of responsibly. There seemed to be an acceptance and an understanding. He was already letting her go as dead (did he not have faith in his apostate sister's abilities?), and he wasn't going to let that death happen for nothing. His eyes were back on the Templar. "If you're not going to do this the right way" –he let his sword drop from pointing at the red head, and instead drew it up at an offense angle– "then let us go, and you go your own way... if not... I'll be forced to fight my way passed you and your wife."

"The Order dictates that I take the apostate with me," the Templar said, straightening. "You and your other companions may go untouched.. save that you do attack..." He glanced at the woman on the ground, whose eyes were closed, and her breathing shallow and short. I knew I had to act, then. If Carver didn't trust Bethany to heal the woman, than I would have to. It wasn't my field of magic, but.. I had potions and kits..

I pulled my hood about my face, as a hand drew my staff... then dropped it into the nearest brush. I used the body of the cloak to swallow my form, hiding my magi robes and I slipped from the tree line, two steps out – when I sensed it.

I don't know how, or why. Perhaps it had sensed _me_, and I had only picked up on its better ability of perception, if just weakly, and tardily. I was whipping my face toward the sky, when the gathered group of people took a startled note to my emergence.

Then they, too, were staring upward, as the sound of a roar shuddered from above.

Instantly, they looked back to me, as though I were to blame for this new threat. I stared between all of them, flickering from figure to figure, but my eyes didn't quite leave the impressionable blue ones, that were dim and bemused, as she watched me. "Run," I said, when I picked up on the other noises; the great violent flapping of its wings, the slight tremor that ran through the ground as it blasted the greenery with its flames. I'd faced enough dragons to know what I was hearing. Somehow one had found itself here, in the Coastland wilds, and I turned away from the travelers, reaching for the staff I'd thrown into the bushes.

My suggestion was ignored.

"Maker's breath! What is that?" said the red head. "Wesley," she started, but was cut off by another sound from the dragon, that seemed to rock the very soil.

I tilted my head back as I drew my staff toward me, and I caught flashes of the dragon, swiveling nearby, maroon colored scales flashing in the sunlight. How the beast had spotted us seemed unanswerable, and it wasn't a thought I dwelled on. I turned back to the travelers, "Run!" I insisted, louder.

That time, they listened. Something seemed to click and they forgot their earlier troubles. The Templar and his wife were the first to make a break toward the trees, and right behind them was Bethany, who halted as she watched Carver sheathe his sword, stoop to pick up Melina, and as a group of four, the family followed the Templar, albeit, much slower.

I stared after them for a heartbeat, until the dragon swooped upon the clearing, setting aflame to the trees around me. I swerved, and then sprinted after the others. I knew I couldn't fight a dragon all on my own. Not a fully grown one. The least I could do was attempt to protect the innocent citizens, who'd had the misfortune of running into this most strange and unheard encounter.

I caught up to them. I moved one hand to my hood and clutched it at my throat, to keep it from falling away, while at the same time I gripped my staff until my knuckles were white. I heard the mother panting, and even Carver seemed to lag underneath the weight of his.. the corpse, I realized, when I took note to her limpness, and the blood that ran vivid from her form down Carvers legs, rioting against the skin of his forearms. The Templar's nasty neck wound was starting to grow evident and he was clutching his wife's shoulder. She didn't seem to mind as she helped him continue forward, but I knew we wouldn't last.

Up ahead, I spotted a thickened patch of trees. The kind of place I knew bucks and deers would have their young. Bracken laid heavy on the twisted embracing limbs of the trees and I leaned toward the nearest traveler, Bethany, and nudged her toward it. She peered at me uncertainly, and I voiced my concern, "There," I said, pointing. "We can't outrun a dragon." And no one disagreed.

Everyone was already winded when we shoved and ducked our way into the patch. I sagged against one of the trees and peered beyond the shrubbery, pushing my breath out of me in a hiss for silence. "It might not find us here," I told them, quietly, as they settled around the grass and bushes, "but we must be quiet and still."

The beast hadn't seemed hooked on the idea of killing us, for it could have done it already. No one could really outrun a dragon. It had only seemed to tease us by setting the forest afire. I thought for a heartbeat, that it would be simple to set us in flames where we were, but I decided I preferred fleeing the flames, than its teeth as I sat in the middle of a clearing.

"Melina?" I turned to watch the mother, as she cradled her daughter's face in her hands. There was no life in Melina, anyone could see, but denial had gripped the woman. "Child, the fight's over. We need you now. Wake up!"

The brother and sister stood staring with sorrow. "I'm sorry mistress," wheezed the Templar, from his place not far off, clutching at his neck. "Your daughter is gone."

"No!" the mother said, and continued to speak to the corpse.

I felt compelled to soother her. "She died bravely," I said, and nearly everyone lifted their head to look at me. What unnerved me was the anger that flared in the mother's face.

"I don't want a hero!" she hissed. "I want my daughter!"

"Let me commend your daughter's soul.. it is the least I could–"

The mother and Carver snarled at the Templar at the same time, "You have done enough!"

Bethany joined her mother on the ground, wrapping her arms about her shoulders. I watched from my place, wondering when the time would come that they started to come at me with battering rams, asking questions, wanting to see my face.

Every traveler stilled at the sound of the dragon somewhere beyond and above us.

I tore my eyes from the mother and the corpse, and began to understand that we weren't going to hide from the dragon either. There was only one other option, and one that I greatly disliked. We'd have to face it. Not necessarily kill it, but weaken it so that we could outrun it. My eyes found the warriors of the group; Carver, was a whole head taller than me, his clothes weren't armor, marred with dirt and the muck of sweat heavy in the air, beading from the damp edge of his black hair, but he had a sword. It was surprisingly well done for a lowly traveler–at least, he smelt and seemed like one–to possess.

His shrewd blue eyes found mine on him and narrowed. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"I.."

"You're an apostate," accused the Templar. He nodded his head curtly at my staff.

The woman at his side sighed at him, "Wesley, surely we don't have to do this now." Her expression was strained, as if she was trying not to judge me at that dire time, faced with an unknown danger and the unfortunate death of a woman her husband probably hadn't meant to kill.

I was uncertain for a moment. Panting and reeling with the surprise brought on by the seemingly random dragon, I didn't have any response to give. I merely eyed that woman, noting her slightly stronger clothing, made of hide, as well as the sword untouched on her back. The Templar showed promise as well, with shield and sword. Only the dead Melina and her mother seemed to be the ones incapable of fighting. Assuming, of course, that Bethany was able to cast spells and control her magic.

"The Order dictates.." the Templar had begun to say, then faltered, cut off by the dragon.

I frowned to see that the dragon had landed in the nearest clearing to us, thrashing its head, setting afire the trees all around the glade, aside the ones we were in. The others winced and withdrew at the sight of the beast, and I compressed my lips before I spoke. "I am," I said, in response to the red head. I knew they couldn't see my face. Though I'm unmistakably female by my size and voice, that was the extent of what they'd infer. Maybe they'd never even seen the Hero of Fereldan before, and my worry was misplaced.

My main worry had to be directed at the dragon, that seemed far too smart for my liking.

"I need you to trust me," I decided, turning back to the group. "I need you to fight with me."

"Fight? Are you mad?" Carver demanded. "We can't fight that... _thing_."

"We have to try," murmured Bethany from her place, lifting her gaze from her sister's face for the first time. She looked up at me and I saw the resignation in her eyes. "I'll fight with you, stranger."

I was relieved. One of them saw sense. I directed my words at the brother and the Templar. "It's not a thing. It's a dragon." I nodded to their swords. "Can you use those?"

Carver narrowed his eyes. The Templar fingered the hilt of his sword and his wife nodded. "They can. I've seen them," she said. "My name is Aveline Vallen, and this is my husband" –she gestures toward the Templar– "Ser Wesley."

"You aren't actually thinking we could take on the dragon, are you?" Wesley inquired.

"Why, do you think it's crazy?" I asked, and shook my head. They wouldn't be my old companions; they weren't used to the upside down things that seemed to happen only to me, and they wouldn't fair in the fight like the stonewall Sten, or the cunning, powerful Morrigan. They didn't possess Shale's brute strength.. which was a shame, because that'd be exactly my technique. Shale and Sten would take the dragon head on, distracting it, while Morrigan and I would dance around the perimeter, bouncing its attention between us, hitting it from all sides until eventually it died.

I doubted Bethany could do what Morrigan could, and the warriors weren't the kind I was used to.

"Trust me," I said, finally. No one would trust a masked stranger, I knew. Not even me. I lifted a hand as I spoke and I tossed back my hood. I waited for something to register in their faces, but the only person who widened their eyes was Carver.

"Commander Amell?" he said.

There were only a choice few who had ever called me that. "You were in my army, then."

Carver nodded stiffly, then inclined his head toward his deceased sister. "We both were."

That made Melina's death seem somehow worse. I had walked away when I heard the fighting. I had told myself they meant nothing to me. Yet, she was someone who had devoted her life to my cause, who risked everything by joining my army, and was one of many who fought at my side in those devastating Denerim streets. I sent a silent, fleeting prayer to the Maker for her.

"Wait. Did you say Amell?" the Templar echoed. "As in Tera Amell, the Grey Warden?"

"I was a Grey Warden," I said, though I neglected that nag at the back of my mind that told me I would always be one, and eventually the taint would take me. "Now I'm here, with you, and my name is.." I faltered. I hadn't meant to change my name, or hint at it, but it seemed suddenly important. "Caela. Don't call me Tera." I didn't take the time to register their confusion or bewilderment or the uncertain glances that were meant to call in question my sanity.

I crouched to peer through the underbrush. I watched the dragon pace along the clearing, its tail lashing in impatience. "It's waiting for us," I murmured, mystified. "Why?" and that was more to myself than any of them.

I couldn't know for certain the exact why, but I knew that we had to do something, before it lost its patience entirely. The people with me were all I had and I was what they had. I turned to them again, to find them thankfully composed, to an extent, and Carver was already staring up at me, with that obedient light that most took to when they learned of my title. "Will you fight?"

"Yes," Carver answered. Bethany nodded and rose to her feet, pulling her staff.

The Templar said something to Aveline, who in turn hissed, "Who knows dragons better than the Hero?"

Ser Wesley lifted his sword. "Then I will fight, even if what this is, is suicidal."

"Dragons aren't immortal," I retorted, hoping my doubt didn't show.

The mother looked beseechingly from Melina's pale face to Bethany. "Please, Bethany stay here with me, where it is safe. I already lost one of my daughters, don't take another from me."

Bethany's amber eyes saddened. "I have to. It's my fault we are trapped here. I'm the reason Melina is dead. If we hadn't been fleeing Redcliffe for my sake, like we have always run from place to place, then we would never have been on our way through the Coastland toward Gwaren," she said and she pushed her way to stand at my side, peering out at the dragon nervously, determined to put her mother behind her. "When?" she asked me.

"Now," I replied. Protests bubbled from both her mother and brother, but I silenced them with a snarl. "_Now_, now," I spoke quickly, "You" –I indicated toward the mother– "stay here. Everyone else is with me. Aim for the dragon's underbelly, watch the mouth and tail, and if you need a potion, I'm the person to run to." I paused, meeting the mother's gaze and adding, "If you see it going bad, run and–" My sentence cut short there as I was about to tell her to return to Denerim and tell them I, Tera, had fallen, but I couldn't.

I didn't want to. A small petty piece of myself didn't want them to know I died here. I wanted them to think I was free and eluding all their efforts to find me. The other pieces were all telling me that I should spare them of that. It was far better for them to think of me somewhere happy and free, than dead, just a burnt corpse on the ground.

"Run and make sure you get to safety," I finish after a moment and she nodded, looking uncertain about the whole situation. The rest of the group followed me as I shifted my staff into an offensive position, pulling myself through the greenery, the leafs dragging across my cheeks and arms, trying to hold me back, begging me with their rustles, not to do this.

I fretted for the younger mage more then myself. Bethany didn't look like one for battle. The rest seemed tried and strong; Carver survived the darkspawn, the Templar had sufficient training, and his wife was hearty. When we passed through the last lining of shrubs, into the newly singed field, the dragon spotted us in an instant, and it tossed its head in threat. I felt the other's anxieties rolling off of them in the air and I reached out a hand and pulled Bethany to me. "Stay behind me, and follow my lead." It wasn't the biggest dragon I'd encountered. Nothing other than its striking color and behavior made it seem special.

With me in the lead, we all threw ourselves into the fray.

The dragon was an impending shape, looming dark and maroon, scales shimmering in the early morning sunlight, filtered and musty by the shrouds of smoke, billowing from the burning forest. I danced along the perimeter, Bethany a step behind, each breath filled with grit and smoke. I had to face the fact, as I watched the mismatched, unorganized group of warriors approach the beast, that my group was pretty pathetic looking.

It roared at us, and something about it unnerved me. I pulled my robe up to cover both my nose and mouth, twisting my staff between my hands and throwing at it an experimental flare of fire. In response it clambered about, stomping its feet, shaking the ground, before it ducked its head spraying fire In return.

My reaction was instinctive, drawing in a sharp breath, pulling forth the magic, then swinging out my arm, to send a wave of ice sprawling out in front of us. It melted away on contact with the fire, but we both spun away, burn-less, circling our prey. I twisted the staff and channeled the lightning from my hand through it, jolting me, aiming the bolt at the reptile's face.

"Don't use too much too fast," I advised Bethany, voice muffled against the cloth, tone slightly breathless as we continued our route around the dragon, never standing in place too long. "Let the staff do the work for you, and cast the spells sparingly."

As we went about doing our own thing, I was distracted by the other half of my group. The boy was swift and the woman dealt heavy blows, while Ser Wesley seemed to be the only one that wasn't just heedlessly throwing himself at the beast, drawn back, huddled beneath his shield, the sword swings precious. Bethany used an arcane strike, the first spell I'd seen her cast and I managed a twist of my lips to encourage her; she was already out of breath, and I was hoping she'd hold on longer. She wasn't practiced, not because she didn't have the potential, but she'd obviously never been in much need of combatant magic.

I figured that out the moment she thrust out her staff, spinning it around in the particular arch that wasn't for spirit or elemental magic, but rather the sort that gave back; I watched with intrigue as Aveline, who had taken a wound began to stand straighter and stronger, blue dancing around her momentarily, kissing her flesh. Bethany was smiling in triumph. "I've never been able to do that right before!" she exclaimed, enthused.

"Learn," I said, "fast." I could tell she had never been to the Circle, trained well, or in the same way I'd been; if she had been trained at all, then it had been not for very long, and in the far past.

I gritted my teeth slightly as she drew its attention toward us. It flayed out its feet at the others, in irritation, rather than pain, and they were doing relatively well, avoiding the worst attacks. I pushed Bethany toward the right of the field, while I paced backward, to the left, shouting at the beast in incoherent bursts of breath. I threw at it three spells in a row, fire, ice, stone fist, draining me. It reared toward me. I half-jumped out of its way, the head lowered to me, spraying flames.

"Look out!" I heard Carver's voice and I swung my head to the side in time to see the tail, sweeping underneath me and throwing my feet off the ground. I dropped my staff in my grapple for steadiness, and flew over the top of the tail, the spikes running along it in ridges, sharp as blades, tearing through the back of my robes and slashing at my flesh. I crashed to the ground on the other side, falling on my stomach, and I sucked in a tight breath, flinching.

The blood welled at an alarming rate, soaking through my robes, and I struggled into the standing position, reaching for my staff, forced to use it as some sort of cane. I could feel the wound weeping, dripping down my back. The warmth found my legs, slithering across the back of knees and calves.

Thankfully the dragon had focused the brute of its attention on the warriors, at that time. I reached to my pack, struggling with it to pull it from my shoulders and then fighting to open the clasp, my hands finding the health potion and draining it in one swig.

Bethany ran along the outer perimeter, and her eyes were focused on me as she called forth her magic. I ceased it with a hand motion, pointing at her brother instead. He was withering on the ground, rolling to escape the fire crawling across his clothes. Bethany healed him instead.

The dragon wasn't ready to give up at all. It tossed back its head and roared louder then it has yet. The sound of it was agony to any ears, and I heard Bethany's screech of harmony follow. She staggered to her knees and the fighters dizzily milled about, hard-pressed to keep grasp of their swords. I felt my ears ring, my thoughts dulled to a soft point, and next thing I knew I was bucked back another ten feet by the sweep of its tail. As I fell over the side, hands braced to catch myself, my cloak caught against one of the bony spikes. I struggled for freedom, twisting and shimmying, choking as the cloak bunched up, holding onto me by the clasp at my throat, pressing into my wind pipe. I clawed at the metal, until the dragon raised its tail, drawing me into the air, legs kicking the open for the desperation that curled in my chest, only to whip it back down again and breathlessly throw me away, the cloak torn and discarded.

I landed, punched by the earth, rolling until I ultimately stopped on my back. By then, the skin was already closed over, thinly, the health potion working furiously to heal me from the inside, before the out. I took a few bewildered seconds to regain my breath, staring up into the smog clouded sky.

How stupid, I was.

In that moment I wished fervently for Wynne, to heal me, to revive me if I died. Or just for her wisdom. Alistair, too. Sten, Shale, Morrigan, Zevran.. Leliana, Oghren, all of them. They would have pulled me from the rift before I was thrown off, would have cut me free with their swift knifes, or a spark of magic, or an arrow. But that would not happen with the new people. They just weren't strong enough, weren't ready. I didn't know them. I should never have pulled them into a fight that was as hard as a dragon. If their blood was shed, it was on my hands. That was why I pushed myself to my feet, because I had a duty to make sure they all walked away from this.

Blood trickled down the side of my cheek from a cut across my hairline and I wiped it away with a irritated hand. I eyed the field, taking note to an unmoving Wesley on the ground, with a sense of dread. _Yes, this was very stupid, _I thought. Bethany hovered over the Templar, letting her staff do her work to defend, as evidently, she was too out of magic to heal.

I searched the field again, and found my pack laying across the dirt, the supplies strewn everywhere. Most of the bottles were cracked or shattered and I cursed the Maker for that as I collected four of the remaining lyrium. I drank two, in time to hear the dragon cry out. It was its first sign of pain, as the redhead drove her sword at the scales. The beast reacted by throwing Aveline back with its tail. She doesn't get back up.

Bethany cried out in frustration from her place beside Ser Wesley. "I can't heal him!"

"Because he's dead," I spat. I ran to them, moving to protect them. I could feel the potion take effect, the magic roiling in my blood, warming my hands and I use more than half the amount drawing it out and without using my staff as an aid, sending a petrifying wave of rock toward the dragon.

With the beast temporarily unable to move, I made to act quickly. I tossed a bottle of lyrium at the stiff and unmoving Bethany. I took her by the shoulders when she just stared at it. "You can't revive the dead, but you can heal the living. Now heal them!" and I waved a hand at the still breathing, but prone Aveline.

Bethany continued to look at the bottle uncertainly. "Drink it, it'll help," I said, in an effort to be more gentle, but it still came out as a snarl. There was a life on my hands, not just blood, and I wasn't about to make it two of them. I would have forced a health potion in Aveline's mouth if I had one, but the girl was all I had. Bethany nodded, eventually, drank it and moved toward Aveline. I swiveled back around in time to face Carver.

He was panting and red faced, covered in ash and dirt. "Is it weakening?" he asked.

"No," I said, without thinking, knowing it wasn't.

"What do we do?"

_Run?_ I almost suggested. Before I could, the dragon broke from its prison, the rocks shuddering, falling away from the reptile's body, crashing into the ground. Enraged at the fact that it had been put out, the beast seemed to lose whatever restraint it had been holding onto and let loose on us. I shoved Carver from my side, away from the flames, and I threw up a counteracting fire ball, before it touched me.

I heard Aveline's furious cry for blood as she was healed and was reminded of her husband's death;_ for that time_, I had thought, _she blames the dragon, but soon, it would be me she wanted to slice to pieces._ Carver joined her in her charge, running wildly at the beast, sword raised.

I backed away slowly, looking for my lost staff. I turned my back only for one heartbeat to stoop and pick it up upon finding it. In those few seconds, the war cries died on gaping lips, and what rang in the air to replace them was... laughter?

Deep, humorous, throaty delight, echoed about the field, bouncing off the distantly flaming trees. Chills ghosted up my spine and I turned slowly, the staff heavy in my hand, as I took in the bemusing sight that awaited me; there was no longer a dragon, yet in its place was a smaller figure, a tall and somehow magnificent woman, who at first seemed a stranger.

When I heard her laughter fall away, her gleaming, cat-like eyes landed on me, and I knew instantly who I was staring at. My face paled, all color and magic momentarily lost to me, all other emotions blown away, as I stared into the face of a rather, living and breathing, ghost.

I had _killed_ Flemeth. I had done it for Morrigan, months and months ago. I shook my head weakly, in denial, because, _surely that wasn't Flemeth_. The woman didn't resemble the Witch of the Wilds, but I got the overwhelming vibe that it was her. Those eyes, they were unmistakable. Flemeth might have changed, donning an intensely embroidered robe, colored the same purpled-maroon of the dragon's scales, and her hair differentiated from the gray, showing starch white, twisted into an elaborate and most strange manipulation, as it seemed to appear as if she had horns hidden beneath the tresses... or even as though the hair was in of itself the horns.. Flemeth might have changed all of that, but I could recognize the way she held herself, the set of her facial expression, and those eyes. The Flemeth I knew and killed had looked no younger than that woman, however, she was hands down ten times more impressive and powerful than last I'd laid eyes upon her.

Irritatedly, uncertainly, I brushed aside my braid from my face and held my staff closer to me. I took a few steps toward Flemeth and my companions backed away from her, wary-eyed, weapons slack at their sides. Just before I was directly in front of her, the wicked smile on her face dampened some and her laughter came to an abrupt halt. Frantically I tried to piece together an expressionless mask, but I knew she'd seen the horror and the shock flitting through my eyes not moments before.

"You've grown weaker, it seems," she said, not one for timely greetings.

I had felt everyone's turn from staring at her, to me. "You know this.. woman?" cried Carver.

I ignored him, and my other companion's shared his confusion and paranoia. My eyes didn't deter from Flemeth's face, smug and smiling as it was. "And it seems that you have raised yourself from the dead," I retorted and that had only set off another trill of gleeful laughter.

"Oh, yes, if you would like to truly believe I was dead in the first place," replied Flemeth, voice purring, rasped as that of a cat's as it holds its prey between its claws. Caged, I looked about the clearing, noting the few exits and the low chance of escape. I wondered if she'd come for revenge, and knew that I'd at least die fighting, protecting these bystanders from her wrath.

I'd remembered Morrigan, when my eyes met once more with Flemeth's. They were sparked in a way that brought the young mage violently back to the surface of my mind, and I let out a long breath, that'd I'd not realized I'd been holding. I recalled chasing after Morrigan, if minimally, through the storms, for only a week, and I recalled her words, her warnings. She had not been japing when she'd said Flemeth was still alive, and at that, thriving.

I gave the woman a sharp, searching look. "Why have you returned to me?" An ebbing frustration, linked directly to the death of the Templar, beat in my chest, trying to justify what had happened; was I to blame, for leading him here, for drawing him to Flemeth's notice, or was she the culprit, for dealing the blows? "Why do you attack these people?" I demanded of her. "If it is me you sought revenge on, then call me out. Do not hide behind the disguise of a beast!"

Flemeth looked even more amused by my words. Slowly, she paced forward, closing the small distance still between us. I refused to lean away, whereas the warriors behind me backed away, further. Bethany was murmuring something to Carver, and I heard the rustle of Aveline hurrying to her husband's dreary side.

"Where would the enjoyment in that be?" said Flemeth, her voice inundated with cunning. "To just show myself to you? I had to make sure you were still strong enough to handle the task I ask you of."

I sneered, unable to hold onto my vacant expression. "You want _me _to help _you_?"

Her lips curled into a smile. "And I will help you in return."

"How so?" I ventured. There was impenitence in my voice, yet curiosity plain in my eyes.

"You seek a new life, no?"

I pursed my lips, momentarily aware of the surrounding people. I took my time to answer. "I do."

"What I need is a simple delivery. In return, I shall bring you to where ever it is you like, undetected by those who would rather stop you. All I ask of you is to take this... trinket of mine..." She opened her fist, that had seemed previously empty, but as she drew her hand up toward me, a locket dangled from her fingers; it was nothing fancy or extravagant, only a silver chain and a simply pennant. "..take it to Sundermount, a mountain that rises just outside the city of Kirkwall. There you will find a Dalish clan. Bring this to their Keeper, Marethari, and she will know what to do from there."

"There are no consequences?" I asked suspiciously.

Flemeth shrugged. "There is only one catch to this deal."

_What is that?_ I thought to myself, eyes steady on her face, _the man you killed today, or something unseen and unexpected that will take me completely off guard?_ I looked around at my companions, so unknown to me, and I wondered momentarily what they were thinking of our exchange. To them it must have seemed like I was making a deal with a demon, or a god of a sort.

Bethany met my gaze boldly when I looked at her, despite the fact that her mother had joined us in the clearing, hugging her remaining daughter tightly about the shoulders. Carver stood just to there side, sword ready, untrusting eyes on Flemeth and I, waiting for the trick. Not too far off was Aveline, on her knees beside Ser Wesley. She'd straightened his body, limbs situated at his sides, and the eyelids were closed with her trembling, grief-shaken fingers. Guilt flooded my being at the sight.

I sighed at the ground, then lifted my eyes back to Flemeth. "You have a deal if you also promise me that all my companions may be safely taken where ever it is they may be heading, as well."

Flemeth considered that. It didn't seem to take long, as though she were expecting that added condition. I watched her face become suddenly_very _amused. "I agree to your terms, Warden."

The silence ticked by as I glared into Flemeth's glowing yellow eyes, hoping for some answers.

"How desperately you wish to forget your past," Flemeth mused thoughtfully. For one paranoid heartbeat I wondered if she could understand the thoughts and feelings in my head. "A smaller life, is that what you're seeking?" She hadn't waited for my agreement. "Yes, but–" and she broke into new laughter.

"But what?" I snapped. She had already gotten what she wanted from me, she killed that Templar which had threatened me, what else could she say or do?

"But fate has a great sense of humor it seems," was her cryptic reply. Before I could speak, she thrust the locket toward me. "Take my deal, Tera, and I promise that you will find something of what you seek."

I hesitated. Flemeth offered me something I could hardly resist. She offered me the fulfillment of a want I _needed_. I'd left Denerim to lick my wounds in peace, to start over, and she offered me that–with a small price. Would anyone else offer me something similar to that? I knew the answer, and held out my hand toward the witch in the same second. I drew in a long breath as I clasped my fingers around the chain and pulled it from her grasp. "I accept your deal," I told her.

She smiled. Her eyes lit up with something I couldn't place. Part of me felt the urge to the throw the locket back at her and flee to the palace, then I hardened myself, and reminded myself that I wasn't afraid of her. Yet, the sound of her voice, all too satisfied for my liking, unsettled me. "A good choice, child."

_Was it? _I wondered, for the rest of my life.


	5. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Dragon Age, 9:34 – Act II: year six –_ future_

"Hold my hand, Caela, you're dead on your feet and the last thing we need is for you to take a header off the gallows," Anders muttered, throwing out the appendage in offer.

I shoved it away with my free hand, repositioning my bundle, then pulling my cloak more firmly around my shoulders. "All I need right now is that damned Templar."

"He's late," observed the unhelpful Anders.

"Yes, I noticed." Which was peculiar for Cullen; he was never late before. _Doesn't he realize how urgent this is?_ I thought despairingly, as I leaned into the wall of a nearby building. Anders moved instantly to wrap an arm around me, but I hissed at him, and he withdrew, hands thrown up in surrender. "Stop treating me as if I'm about to collapse."

"I'm surprised you haven't."

"I'm fine," I insisted for the hundredth time. I straightened my shoulders, despite the pain that ran up the length of my back and begged me to curl into a ball. I spoke through my teeth. "I hope you don't think that what just happened.. in the Sundermount caverns.. we're still not friends." I knew it was harsh to say, but I had to, I had to push him away.. he felt too impossibly close. There was a select few I would have chosen to endure that with and the last one on that list would have been Anders. Yet, there I was, standing in the shadows of Kirkwall, late at night, frozen to my bones, having just limped my way from Sundermount to the Chantry, leaning into his shoulders.

"Wouldn't want to give Fenris that impression, would we?" replied Anders. "Can't have his girlfriend befriending an abomination." He really withdrew then, bitterly, crossing his arms over his chest and moving away to stand against one of the distant support beams.

I felt my free hand twitch, meaning to reach out at him, but I clenched it into a fist. It wasn't because I wanted him, truly. Selfishly, I didn't want him to leave me there, alone. It was true that I'd said that we weren't friends, merely because my thoughts had gone to Fenris. If he saw me as I was then.. hair matted with sweat, legs shaking beneath my weight... holding the hand of a hated companion...? No. If Fenris saw that, it would have only pried more distant between us, and I wouldn't have been able to cope.

Instead of speaking, Anders gazed up at the Chantry, towering over everything, just across the way.

Every second that passed tightened my nerves. I wanted Cullen to take my burden before it could hurt me any more and yet, as the silence dragged on, I shifted the bundle and held it to my face, burying myself there, feeling the warmth graze my cheek and neck and lips. _I'm so sorry,_I thought, then lifted my head at the sound of running footsteps.

"Caela?" came the call. "Is that you?"

"Cullen," and my voice shook with my relief. I pushed myself up from the wall with a new strength I'd not had moments ago and embraced the Templar I'd known all my life. He pulled away, to glance uncertainly at Anders, who was watching us, then Cullen's eyes went down, between us.

"Tera.." he whispered, out of Anders' earshot, his eyebrows knitting together.

"Just take it," I told him, and used my free hand to grip his forearm. He wasn't wearing his Templar armor; he must have been off duty, wearing the clothes of any common man. "Do this for me."

"Are you sure?" he asked. There was still confusion in his face as he lifted his eyes to mine.

"I've never been more sure about anything in all my life."

"Very well, I trust your judgment."

As I handed Cullen the bundle, and he held it awkwardly against his chest. I was consumed abruptly with the gratefulness I felt to these two men. I owed them, for their silence, their grudging understanding, the questions unasked. Of both I should have hated; one a mage given over to a spirit of the Fade and the other a Templar, trained to capture me. The irony of it was bitter. Yet, I felt at that moment, emotional and raw and nothing like myself. I had to let them know I appreciated it, if I ever did anything for them. "Thank you," I breathed to him, _for everything._

"Of course, Caela." The name felt off on his tongue. Cullen must have been remembering the time that I'd returned to the Circle of Fereldan, as a Grey Warden named Tera Amell, whom purged the tower of the corruption that threatened his life. Or was he seeing the sixteen year old me, that had pulled pranks with an ancient best friend, Jowan, on him and his newly graduated Templar troop on their first day at the Circle?

"And you," I said, turning toward Anders. "If you hadn't come.."

"Let's just be glad I did," he said, and I saw the warmth touch his eyes briefly, before he remembered we're supposed to be heated enemies. Anders slid his gaze Cullen's way. "Can he be trusted?"

"I'd trust Cullen with my life," I responded, eliciting a smile from the Templar.

"Not all Templars are awful," said Cullen and Anders merely shrugged indifferently, turning away and looking about the square. "I must be getting back though," he continued, to me. "I'll be sure that the Chantry receives your gift."

I shook my head, faintly amused. "Gift, huh?"

"Every child is a gift, Tera. From the Maker," he whispered.

I pursed my lips at his words. The free hand I had against his arm moved and reached for the bundle sandwiched between his arm and his chest. I shifted the robes that Anders used to swaddle the infant and my fingertips briefly ghosted across the child's flushed, apple-red cheek. "This gift is not for me," I breathed, the air a puff of white in the winter cold. "I'm not the child's mother. I can't be a mother."

"I understand." I continued to gaze down on the Maker's creation for several seconds. Cullen spoke, awkward and curious, "What are you thinking about?"

I smiled up at him, thinly. "Of how Alistair hated his life in the Chantry.." and it ached to say that name, the smile stolen from my lips as fast as the breath in my lungs. "I'm trying to convince myself that the Chantry will be different to this child. There is no where else. Take it away, please, walk away. I don't think I can."

Cullen nodded, drawing the coverings back over the child's face and then he turned his back to me, walking calmly across the square, toward the steps that led up to the Chantry. I drew in deep breaths as I watched, and Anders came up behind me, resting a hand against my shoulder. "Come on, Hawke, you need some rest and another good dose of healing. You can stay in the Clinic tonight. Tomorrow, it's time for you to return to Kirkwall, publicly."

I thought of the months I'd spent in hiding. I remembered the night I'd left the city, not speaking to anyone. The whole city would be wondering what happened to their Champion, who had so suddenly left, in the year after her victory. Isabela came to mind; I'd invited her to share my big empty house with me after Leandra died, and then I abandoned her to it. All of them. I'd abandoned them for my own personal reasons, _just _as I had done in Denerim..

I peered at Anders out the corner of my eye. "How are they?" I asked. "All of them."

"I wouldn't know, the group sort of scattered after you left. Varric tries, but it's not the same. For a few weeks I know he had got Merrill and Aveline to search for you with him. Isabela merely said you'd be back, and enjoyed the free hospitality of your estate."

"And.."

"Fenris?"

I nodded.

"Haven't seen that blighter's face for some time. Not that there's a reason to be upset about it."

I took a deep breath, turning away from the Chantry to face Anders. I found myself being scrutinized by his eyes, they were brown, warm in color, yet hardened by the intensity. I worried myself not over Fenris or the others, but about Justice, or Vengeance, or whatever his name was, and if it was time for Anders to question me about the desire demon.

"I was just as terrified as you, you know," he murmured, finally. "I'd never delivered a baby before."

Relieved, I sighed. "Me either," I said, eyes closing slightly, recalling the terror that had gripped me, the pain that the labor brought on, the way I clung to Anders' hand as he fretfully told me what do to, though neither of us knew exactly. It was both humiliating and degrading, for it to be him, to see me in that state, but it was also.. bonding, in some way, when he handed me my child, proud of himself, for not letting either of us die, and that we clawed our way through it, together, two unlikely allies.

"I think I'm going to collapse now," I said. Anders laughed, a loud, abrupt sound and I raised an eyebrow, accepting the arm he held out to me. "Since when do you laugh?"

"Since you left town," he retorted, and though it would have offended me months ago I smiled then.

"I really was awful to you," I murmured tiredly, allowing him to lead me away from the Chantry, easily finding a flight of stairs that would bring us to Dark Town. "I am sorry."

"I think I can be the bigger person and put it behind me. Justice would like that."

"Justice is a decent fellow. For a spirit from the Fade."

"Really?" Anders' voice was wiry. "He thinks you're very selfish."

"Then he's smart, too," I replied, beyond caring. We fell into silence.

I'd always rejected Anders, from the moment Varric told me there was a Grey Warden in Kirkwall, before I even saw his face. It had not mattered to me that he was an abomination until later. Anders had, at one point, represented to me my failings. He was someone who might have ruined everything I'd worked to build in Kirkwall. I used to wonder all the time, if Anders was really a Grey Warden. The taint was so faint in him. When I'd first met him I had thought Varric told me false; he couldn't be a Warden, I had been sure of it, because I couldn't feel the same corruption in him as I had in Alistair..

After a few months I merely came to the conclusion that Alistair and I were two special cases of Grey Warden. We were closely tied to the Archdemon, in the most recent Blight. Its blood had once lain across our flesh and we had been targeted by it personally. And perhaps, Justice strengthen Anders against the taint, helped purify him. The thought was an enlightening one, to know a benefit that came from their merge, but I still questioned the security of being intertwined with a spirit from the Fade.

Another part of me feared Justice, for my own reasons; could Justice see through me? I had once worried myself over that. If the spirit could aid Anders, by loosening the hold of the taint on him, could the spirit sense the darkspawn blood in _me?_

Soon after those thoughts came to me, I'd come to realize that it was impossible for him to know. Unless someone was a seasoned Grey Warden, who could sense the taint like I could, I doubted anyone would be calling me out on my false identity, for that reason.

"I should go to Isabela and Aveline in the morning," I said when the Clinic was in sight. "Then to Varric in the Hanged Man, and after that, everyone will know I'm back. That dwarf can't keep his mouth to himself for all the coin in the world."

Anders nodded absently to my plan. Then asked, "And your siblings?"

"Bethany is out of contact," I said immediately, and then my face darkened when my thoughts strayed to Carver. "My brother won't be happy that I'm back."

"I'm sure that he–"

"He hates me. He became a Templar in _spite _of me, stop defending him."

_You remember when he tried to arrest me, _I thought bitterly, _you were there that day, helping me, then, too. _And I lurched suddenly, just before we entered the Clinic door, swinging my arms around his neck in a hug. It was awkward and felt strange, but eventually Anders' arms found my waist and returned it.

"Thank you," I told him in his ear, closing my eyes, "for being my friend all along."


	6. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Dragon Age, 9:31 – Act I: year zero – _past_

The Waking Sea was harsher than I had previously thought it would be. Though who knows what I expected, considering I'd never once traveled by sea before, let alone beyond my homeland. I got sick plenty on the way, and not just home sick. Aveline and I shared a green face and lost lunches together, hanging over the side of the rails, scarcely talking, but when the rock of the deck threatened to throw us off our feet we would grasp each other by an arm or shoulder.

More and more I started to fear the deep waters surrounding us in all directions, of a washed out graying blue, beating against the boat. It threw us about as though a child's doll, while cold winds strained against the mast and sails. The crew worked tirelessly against the vicious tides, and I felt useless watching them, their art that I didn't know nor understand. I sat deep within the relative safety of the boat's belly, accompanied by my new and strange companions. At night I would close my eyes, press hands into my ears and ignore the fact that I could hear the waves against the wood around me.

My fear was not lost on them. Carver always twisted his lips at me and though Leandra seemed lost in her grief to speak much, she spared me queer glances. Aveline was much better at feigning contentment, in concerns of Wesley, but I could have sworn she sent me scathing looks every once in awhile. Bethany seemed like the only one willing to help me, let alone speak to me.

And I could not help but give into her company. She was the only one willing to be my friend for hundreds of miles. There was a sweetness in her, that I had known in Leliana. But she had a tongue that liked to say things when she was teasing that reminded me of Morrigan. I clung to the similarities of my old companions within her. When I spoke to Bethany, it was not her face I saw, her words I heard, nor her hand that might of briefly squeezed mine to comfort my fear; it was only shadows I sought.

She, too, had fears. Most of them were for her family, though. Something sweet and touching, caring for others. I merely had nightmares about myself, about the ship sinking and the sea swallowing me – I can't fight, nor stab the _sea_ – and the occasional terror of forgotten darkspawn ripping me to pieces. Leliana woke crying out for Melina, for Carver and reaching for his strong arms when he would wake at the sound. I woke clawing at the wooden boards underneath my sides. I tried comforting her once or twice over her fears, about her guilt in the fact that Melina died, for her, because she was a mage, but I couldn't find the right words. I resolved to squeeze her hand back and savored the old friends I sought for in her eyes.

Carver, who had once shown respect upon hearing who I was, turned that into a cool bitterness. He called me a deserter when I explained to them that I had left Denerim for good. Perhaps once he had fought in my army, alongside his recently deceased older sister, but he would no longer take my orders, and he certainly wouldn't respect me. I accepted that quickly, as well as his distaste. I _had_ deserted.

I didn't tell them the why of my leaving. Not that the new queen was out for me, or that the Circle wanted to lock me away again. I wasn't going to tell them my greatest fear of entrapment and how Alistair broke my heart, and all the sappy, pitiful things that one might share. To unwrap myself and my life before them like that? It caused me to shudder. I merely told them I was Caela, an apostate, a refugee, and I hated the sea.

Their mother wouldn't look at me much, nor speak to me; whether Caela or Tera. She was consumed with anger at the fact that I allowed Aveline to join us. She still blamed Ser Wesley for Melina's death and despite how Bethany tried to say the Maker took his life in penance, it had no impact. Aveline herself was similarly inclined to ignore me, and she took her husband's death in quiet sadness, but I held strong hope in those few strained meetings at the rails we shared. As few as they were, I was sure that she could eventually forgive me for my mistake and for Wesley's death on my hands.

Proof of their true bitterness was shown in way they had not even thanked me.

Upon making my deal with Flemeth, I had requested their safety, too. Since I was not keen on any particular place (other than the Dalish clan) I agreed to go wherever it was they had been heading. Aveline admitted that she had no where to go. She gestured at her dead husband, "Not without him," and stared blankly at Flemeth. I offered her to join me, because Wesley was partly my fault, and the words kept tumbling out of my mouth. I promised her I would offer her my protection and money whenever it was needed (the only things I could offer, really). Reluctantly, the woman agreed. It was up to the Hawke family to answer next and Carver refused both Flemeth and me, until his mother cut in, demanded his silence and told me that I would take her family to Kirkwall. I owed her that, she had said. I didn't deny it.

It was Flemeth, really, who got them on the ship. Me, included. We never went to Gwaren. Flemeth led us to a much smaller port on the coast. In which I was not questioned or recognized. There, we boarded a ship without charge and set sail to Kirkwall. I'd never heard much of that particular city, other than it was in the Free Marches. Throughout the short time I spent within the court of Fereldan, I'd listened very little to the lessons Alistair received about the surrounding politics. I'd caught faint rumors about Kirkwall from the lips of strangers. Small things about how the Arishock had landed themselves in the city during a storm, stranded without ships. The environment was tense. The viscount was scandalously trying to keep it quiet. I hadn't bothered to worry about the issues back at the palace; I didn't want to get myself into more politics or clashing races, after all I'd seen and done. I'd had my life's fulfillment of war. Not to mention darkspawn and warriors, kings and noblemen, dwarfs and werewolves.. I'd had myself up to my neck in that stuff and I didn't want anymore.

So I was going to Kirkwall.

Ironically, I had thought the Arishock wouldn't be a problem. Of course not. They followed the Qun. I knew Sten, whom held faith in such traditions, and I respected him. Sometimes I didn't understand him, but I knew that he had no intentions of harming Fereldan. I knew that the Qun wasn't a barbaric belief system such as some. I trusted that Kirkwall was safe..

So I was going to Kirkwall.

I repeated the name in my mind. The sound of the city didn't stick the way Fereldan had. That would always be my true home, the one I loved dearly, like an old friend. I had saved it from corruption. I would never forget the heat of the dry summers, the taste of toasted dirt sitting on my tongue, and in the city, the rustle and bustle of the markets. But I had to let that go.

So I was going to Kirkwall.

It was perfect, despite the way it sounded. It didn't hold the remembrance of all my travels. Not every tree would bring those nights in camp and the warmth of my old friendships, painfully to the surface. All the things I would miss. Kirkwall promised me a breath of fresh air. Would become the safe haven I was searching for.

Thinking back, perhaps, I was made for the countryside, for the small rough villages that string the Fereldan lands. I was barbaric and simple in the way all the Fereldan people were. If Leandra's words could be believed, about her childhood, about her family there, then the city would be a foreign place and hold an unknown society to me. Fancy and elegant and regal. A far cry from Fereldan, but not quite Orlesian.

And so, I was going to Kirkwall, heading straight toward it, in a wooden box floating across the Waking sea, with a bunch of strangers, who, frankly, I didn't trust. They all knew who I was. That won't bode me well, once my identity becomes an important factor that could mean both life and death. A deal of some sort needed to be made. An agreement for them to keep my secret and I... would protect them? Become their personal slave? Kiss their feet? I expected the last from Carver. He seemed the high and mighty type. Someone who wanted to rise up, above betters. His mother on the other had, would probably only request my death by flogging. Bethany wouldn't want anything. With Aveline, I had not an inclining what she would want. If I had to have guessed, something big.

On the ship, my identity didn't matter, though. The deal could wait.

By far, the ship travel was the worst of my journey. It paled in comparison to traveling through the darkspawn infested Deep Roads; it was only my fear of the water that drew me up short and made me prefer the earth over my head, miles deep in darkness. Unable to bathe, but instead get showered with the sea's salty spray, the ship was overcrowded and stank of rank bodies. The smell was as foul as any considerably large village in Fereldan. Bright side? At least I could not smell corpses – an all too familiar scent. Terrible motion sickness and lack of proper food left me dizzy most days, and the heat of the day had caught up with us made for respite to the chilling showers.

Next time Flemeth came to me, asking to make deals, I might just have to rethink them. She obviously doesn't realize how to properly hold up her side of these things. I mean, _safe _travel, does not entitle these sort of conditions.

Arriving at Kirkwall was a matter with little relief. The gallows were still a creation of when the city had been full of slavery. The statues of weeping and starving slaves, chained, was not to my taste. I felt homesick for Fereldan more than ever, as I walked uneasily from the ship's deck onto the docks, the nerve-racking sea at my back and a stranger on each side.

The day was moderately hot, and humidity hung in the air, clinging my robes to my body with sweat. Certainly, I was a mess of a sight. When I caught a glance at my reflection in the armor of a guardsman standing beside the city gate, I was reminded of those days traveling across Fereldan, for more than the hundredth time; seeing the tangled, matted ropes of my hair, as wild as flames, the color dulled in grease. The only difference was that my robes would had to have been soiled in blood, instead of salt water, but of course back then, it would have been Sten's or Alistair's armor I caught my battered face in not a city patrol man.

All my company was similarly a mess. No one objected when Bethany led us to the side of the bustling docks. Next to a ship that was unloading, the captain's shouts echoing around, we took a short dip in the water. I was hesitant at first, the water was polluted and thin, but once I got used to the feel I ducked my head a few times, and changed into a rough-spun tunic feeling clean. I shifted the brown fabric as low as it would go, mere mid-thigh and straightened the stiff collar, the laces moving up between the valley of my breasts.

"You look different, in that," Aveline noted. "Less like a mage."

I shrugged, tucking the dirtied robes into my pack and slinging the carriage around my back. "My staff gives me away well enough," I admitted. "That aside, any trained Templar can pick out a mage in a crowd. That's what they're taught in those Chantry schools. Don't you ever wonder why apostates make a break for it the moment they glimpse that shiny Templar attire?"

"You fear Templars, then," Carver said, pulling himself from the water and back onto the dock. He jerked his clothes onto his legs and over his head, before he brushed the drops of water from his hair. "That is surprising."

"I don't fear them."

His gaze found mine, narrowed in challenge. "You do. I can see it."

"I fear what they will do to me," was my answer. "You fear those who will kill you, men who are stronger and bandits who would cut you to pieces for only the gold in your sack. I don't fear them, because all they want is my life and my possessions. Templars.. they won't just take my life. It's not my robes and staff they want from me. They'll take everything. My feelings, my voice, my memories.. my future, my freedom. Everything. That is what I fear."

Bethany looked frightened, while Carver grunted, turning his attention to the laces of his trousers. Aveline shook her head, jaw clenched, and insisted, "Wesley was not that kind of man."

"Perhaps not," I said. "But he would have handed me over to the other kinds of men who were."

Aveline flushed beneath her freckles and turned sharply from me. She would have none of my words, and I was glad. The others were still dressing and cleaning up, so I opted to get a look around and away from the awkward air I'd induced. I was grateful to be free of them for a few moments, reacquainting myself with the sweet, sweet ground beneath my boots.

No one looked too closely at me as I shouldered my way through the docks. They didn't care enough to glance at another traveler. I was no one. It was beautiful.

The closer to the city gates I got, the more crowded. There was a horde of people just before two or three guardsmen. Others were hanging about, sitting along walls, buying from hastily set up merchants, crying, or begging for food and passage on ship. Complaints moved from the lips of those directed at the guards, and a high strung hostility hovered in the surrounding area, mingling with the dinginess.

"They're not letting anybody into the city," a woman grumbled to my left.

"Why?" I overlooked the crowd of people. None seemed inclined to start a riot or fight. That was somewhat disappointing. "Has there been trouble?"

"Overflow, more like." There was a hard edge to the woman's voice. I turned to her and noted the way she critically eyed me. "That's a Fereldan accent you've got there. I thought your Blight was over. Haven't you refugees spoiled enough for the rest of us?"

There was a little girl clinging to the woman's soiled and muddied skirts, and she peered up at me from a sunken, hungry face. The mother pushed the girl further behind her side and sent me a warning glare before marching off. _This will not be fun, _I decided, turning back to the docks. _None, at all._

I told the others about our predicament. The family of three instantly became distressed. "That's impossible, they can't do that," Leandra protested. "I was born in those walls."

"Looks as if they can," I said.

"There has to be someone we could talk to.." Bethany said.

The thought was a half hopeful one. If I planned on going into Kirkwall as Caela, then I would have to exhibit myself as any other commoner, leaving me with just as much a chance of getting in as the other people gathered there. If I wanted to go in as Tera, the Hero of Fereldan.. well I would certainly be let in immediately, whether in welcome, or as a prisoner, or for the Circle, that I could not know, and certainly word would get back to Denerim within the next ship's departure.

I looked to Carver, who met my gaze in half a glare. A deal would be ripe for the time. I murmured for them to follow me, and they agreed, so I led them toward the shadowed alcove between two dock warehouses. Few people lurked near and though the space was cramped, I could see all my companion's faces. I could see the honest curiosity in Bethany's eyes and the guarded caution in Aveline's. Carver maneuvered a shoulder in front of each family member; it brought Melina to the surface, laying across the ground, between us as she once did, and that look they shared..

I didn't know Carver, but I knew he would put his family first. They were his responsibility and he would protect them, if he would do anything else. I would have to play off that. "I need your help," I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Yes, because _your_ help last time benefited us so well," Carver said.

"Do you really believe you would be in Kirkwall right now if it was not for me?" The words were hissed, and I felt my temper well, much too easily triggered. For no other reason than that he was undermining me and my strength and my intentions to help them. _I protected you the best I could, _I thought. _I wasn't stronger than Flemeth, I never meant for that Templar to die._

Carver's own knee jerk defense rose to meet mine. He stepped forward and brandished a finger at my chest. "I would not have left Fereldan if not for you."

_Me? _What about Bethany? "And pray tell me, _what_ have you left behind?" I snapped. "A dead sister? The destroyed remnants of your home in Lothering? The none existent job you had after my army was laid to rest?"

Leandra stepped forward and pushed aside Carver's hand. "Not yet," she told him. Then, to me, "Get us in those walls. You said that you would aid us. Do this and you will be free of our debt."

"Keep me in your debt, all I ask of you is your silence."

"Pardon?" Aveline said, eyes intent on my face. "Warden, what is it you're asking?"

I cringed at the title. "Well, first, do not call me that." She nodded curtly. "Second.." I glanced around the space, at all of them. "I need you to forget who I am. I beg you to never indulge the information upon others, no matter the circumstance. Will you help me... leave my past behind? Here, together, we can start anew."

They were not so moved by my words as I had hoped. Carver stared at me as if I were mad, or insulting him in some mixed up way, while Aveline only seemed to hesitate. Bethany was reeled in by her mother's arms and Leandra took on a clouded grieving expression. "You remind me of Melina," she said to me, her voice soft.

The words made me tense; the fact that she was speaking somewhat kindly to me relieved me, as well as unnerved me. It was unknown territory, with Leandra, and the discussion of Melina at all. "I do?" I asked tentatively.

"She had always stressed the point of us staying together. Like her father, she could not bear the sight of her family breaking apart."

Carver shifted his weight, uncomfortable, looking to his mother. "You can't think she would want us to do this? To help the Warden?" he asked.

"We cannot know what she wanted, Carver," was her only reply, but it made me smile, if only slightly.

"Will you help me then?" I asked.

Looks were passed. They were probably remembering the last time I had asked for their aid. One of them came up dead, I ended up allying with the dragon, demon, being.. but even so, after a long draught of silence, Aveline nodded. "I swear to the Maker, I will not speak a word of it to anyone."

I smiled upon her. Carver cut in before I spoke. "I do not find any gain from sharing with others, nothing short of killing or imprisoning you. You have my word that it will not be me who gives you away."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Bethany said, earnestly.

The mother agreed absently.

I beamed at all of them. A weight had been lifted, and I could breathe the humid air in gratefully.. I felt just that much freer. The homesickness dissolved and ebbed as we walked down the docks. In its place was a drive for something new. The name, my new name, bubbled to the surface of my thoughts. _Caela. _I could not for the life of myself remember where I'd heard or seen that name before. Mayhaps I made it up.

All I knew was that Tera would not return to the past like those other ancient Grey Wardens, or such as my past companions, who had all gone back to their old lives, to what they had possessed before the Blight. What I had before was not a life, I had only the Circle and Jowan, both of which were things I lost and learned to loathe. Kirkwall though – I lifted my eyes to the towering, white, creamic walls – it was nothing spectacular. Bigger, yes. Smellier, for certain. The slave markings were not "pretty".. no, but it was neater with its tiled paths and squares.

"What is your plan?" Aveline asked. We neared the gathering of people I'd assessed before.

"We get into the city," I told her.

Carver shot me that look again. The one that made me feel like an idiot. "How do you suppose we do that, _Caela_?"

Only he could have made my new name sound like an insult. "You've an uncle here, don't you? If I heard correctly, then he and your family are highly considered."

Carver loomed closer. "And who says he will let _you_ in? He is our connection."

I didn't rise for the bait. "You would no–"

"Gamlen will get us all in the city, if he can do it," Leandra cut in. "Melina would never forgive me if I left Aveline out here alone or..." There was obvious hesitation for adding the next part. "...Caela. She has helped us get here at least. Can you not pause to care?"

"Of course I care," Carver said. "But she would not forgive _me_ if I allowed us to trust blindly in two strangers. Especially one that makes deals with demons.. or witches, or dragons."

"Her name is Flemeth," I supplied.

"Don't care," Carver said, flinging a hand my way to silence me. "All I care about is that you aren't similarly messed up and that she won't have regular visits."

"No, I expect I don't want to see her ever again," I told him.. and that seemed to deflate the entire group's anxiety. "We're not friends, her and I."

"That is good news," Aveline said.

Bethany slipped from her mother's crushing hold and touched a few fingers at my wrist, catching my gaze and smiling. "I told them that, but they didn't believe me."

_Gossip behind my back already. _A perfect start. I gripped her hand momentarily, squeezing it, before I dropped it. "Thank you." I knew that they still wanted to blame me for their misfortunes. Aveline wanted to hate me for Wesley, but it didn't seem her nature. Whereas Carver had no problem putting all his resentments on me; perhaps he was really angry at himself because he had not saved Melina, or that he wanted to blame Bethany for making them run in the first place, but couldn't, and so he blamed the nearest mage. I could only guess at this, not know for certain, but one was bound to be correct.

There was a shout from the people, a groan of protest. We all turned at the sound. Someone was being pushed aside and arrested by a pair of guards. Aveline frowned. "This could be dangerous." She glanced at my less than lackluster clothing. "There might be trouble."

"Then I'll conjure my armor," I told her dismissively. It was nice, though, to think she cared enough for my safely. But perhaps she only cared for my benefit in battle, compared to Carver and Bethany's fighting strength. "Let's save the skirmishes for later. There has to be someone here we can speak to."

I don't bid them to follow as I move, but they shadowed my footsteps when I slipped through the crowd. I stopped short in front of one of the guards, whom stood stiffly in front of white stone steps that led up to the inner walls of Kirkwall. The man was blonde, with hard-unmoving brown eyes and I went for a more civil approach. "Pardon me–" I had begun, but he cut me off, addressing the entire front line.

"Back up!" he ordered. "Back up! Do not bully your way to the front. No one's getting in." Him and the man next to him raised their arms, to guide the horde back. People merely began muttering irritability, jostling closer, stepping on each other's toes.

I hissed when Carver's boots clamped down on my own feet, and I gave him a shove away from me, stepping up the guard, face-to-face, demanding, "Why are you not letting anyone in?"

"We're full," the blonde guard snapped. "The city can't handle anymore mouths to feed or hands to occupy. Too many refugees from the Blight, that don't seem to want to leave. Arishock take up a whole district. The streets are overflowing and crime has peaked. The viscount has ordered that no one is to get in. Knight Commander Meredith has fortified the decision."

"All agree, we don't need anymore foreigners stealing the jobs of Kirkwall citizen," the second agreed.

"But we have to get in. Isn't there someone we could talk to?" Aveline said.

The blonde guard looked uncertain. He noted Carver plenty, being the armed man of our group, but his eyes seemed to focus on me far too much, his eyebrows drawn tight. I had begun to wonder if people did know too much about Tera, until he admitted, "I do not think it will do you much good. But you can talk to my guard captain.."

"Where?" I said, looking around.

He jerked his chin to the stairs at his back. "Just up through there. You'll see him, standing at the gate."

Bethany told him our thanks, while I moved instantly to clamber up the steps. We went down a few paths, before we came upon a square. There were a fewer people here, compared to the docks, but these ones were quieter, leaning on walls and sitting huddled next to merchant carts. One was shouting out for coin, rattling a dented tin can. Aveline paused to drop a copper in. "Look at all these poor people," she murmured, as we crossed the wide opening. "Someone should help them."

Throughout the passed year of war, I'd learned to numb myself to most of that stuff. The suffering, the doomed to die, the poor. It was awful, but I knew if I looked long enough, if I thought about it.. it would have felt like a fist in the gut. Only, I didn't. I brushed it out of my mind and breathed and knew I wasn't strong enough to help. "Maybe you should," I told her weakly.

"Why?" Carver asked, unfazed. "It is their own fault they have ended up the way they have."

Bethany bopped him on the arm, then sought out Aveline's glare. "Ignore him, please. He has such an ill taste of humor."

"I wasn't joking," Carver insisted. Bethany merely elbowed him. The mother ceased a retaliation in a glance.

There was a group of men standing at the base of the staircase leading to Kirkwall's gate. An argument was in place. Armed, and clearly angry, I threw a warning hand behind my back at my group, holding up two fingers. Then I realized that meant nothing to them. Alistair would have understood. Sten would have lumbered to my side and Shale would have moved to Morrigan's flank. Leandra would have slipped the knife she keeps inside her sleeve to fit into her palm. My new companions stared at the hand in confusion.

I dropped the appendage. From what I could pick up, the men were demanding entrance, but as I pulled up to their side, they fell silent, every man's eye falling to me. Then Carver, then Aveline, then dismissively at the youngest and oldest of our group. I knew that was what they were doing, because I did the same to them. I went to the leader, then my eyes danced to the strongest, the tallest, the best armed, and I disregarded the weakest. I'd trained myself in that way, I have heard my teachers; Wynne, Morrigan, Zevran, Leandra.

After assessing them, I promptly ignored the group of men and looked to the head guard. "Why isn't anyone being let into the city?" I asked. The other guard had answered me easy enough, but I found myself wondering if there was more reason for it than people let on.

The guard gave nothing away. "I'm sorry. There is simply too many refugees from the Blight. There is no room for more travelers at this time. I–"

"But we have family here!" Leandra cut in.

"Yes, well a lot of people claim–"

"Amell," Carver said. "We have an estate."

"And an uncle," Bethany added.

The guard captain considered that, and his face suddenly twisted in thought. "Amell?" he asked and when Leandra nodded, he continued, "That does sound familiar.."

Quite, actually.

_Tera Amell_, rings a few bells for me and I slid Leandra a glance that spoke my every confused thought. Before I could voice these, one of the men who had been arguing beforehand, exclaimed, "What!" He stepped forward, shoving between Bethany and Carver, eyes snapping angrily between the captain and I. "You can't be serious! We have been here for days and they haven't had foot on this dock for an hour and you're going to let them in?"

The captain sighed exasperatedly. A gloved hand raised to defuse the man. "I didn't say that. I–"

"We payed good coin to get here!" one of his men spouted.

"And so did half of Fereldan, but you're too late," the captain said. "There is no more room."

I cut in, my eyes straying toward the gate. For a split second, I considered sneaking in. I might have pulled it off, alone. But with the others to think about, and my wish for them to uphold their end of the deal, I couldn't. "You have to be letting some people in," I said, evenly. "Otherwise you wouldn't be here."

An uncomfortable tension rose from the captain and the two other guards standing stationary behind his back. They shared a glance and the captain pressed his lips together. "Citizens and merchants that make our wile, yes. But not refugees."

Carver would not take no for an answer. "But doesn't our family count? You said you recognized it."

The guards looked unconvinced as a whole. "Perhaps I don't. I've heard that claim a thousand times before, most always a lie. I'm sorry, there is nothing we can do. Eventually the ships to take you back to Fereldan will be found. Until then, you stay here, outside the walls."

"There must be someone else in charge we can talk to," I said. I felt a slight annoyance, but I tried my best to suppress it. I hadn't come this way all for nothing. If anything, I _can't _go back. Not now.

"The city has been closed by order of the viscount," the captain replied, straightening. "You stand within Knight Commander Meredith's fortress." He lifted his chin, arrogant, superior, and my teeth grit together. "But as far as you're concerned _I'm_ in charge here."

I wondered what he would say to Tera, the Hero of Fereldan, Grey Warden Commander, and perhaps, most importantly, apostate. Fleetingly, I thought I'd like to see what a lesson of manners would do to a man like the guard captain, but I held my tongue. Those kinds of urges were exactly what got me in a world of trouble more times than I could count. Maker knows the Blight might have been just a little easier if my tongue and temper hadn't gotten me into so much trouble...

So I changed tactic. "Please." The word was more hiss than plead. "_Gamlen_ Amell. He is the uncle. Surely you could at least bring him to us if you won't let us in."

"Gamlen?" One of the guards behind the captain echoed. "I know that name."

"He lives here in the city, a nobleman," Carver offered.

The guard snorted harshly. "A nobleman? Nay. The only Gamlen I know is a weasel who couldn't rub two coppers together."

Captain Arrogant considered his companion. "They are telling the truth?" he asked.

The guard shrugged. "I know this Amell."

"Then if he comes around, I'll bring him to you," Captain Arrogant allowed. "But I don't have time to–"

"You're going to let _them_ through?" Leader Guy from before cut in, and that time he positively shoved Bethany into Aveline and stepped up to my side, sending me a glare of hostility. "If you let them in, you let us in."

Captain Arrogant obviously didn't hear the threat in that last sentence. Or the subtle shift of hands to hilts, or the dead set violence that clicked into their minds. Not like I could, not like I'd been trained to see. Sten's training rang in my head; _never let them surprise you, small girl. _The guard captain continued to try and calm the situation. "Now, now, I didn't say anything about–"

"That's it! We're carving our way through. Men!" Leader Guy drew a sword, in time to his whole gang. I'd seen that same situation too many times in my life to be truly shocked. My muscles moved on instinct, on a memory, before my mind even remembered. My staff was off my back in seconds, my first spell was Tera Amell's go-to one. A wall of ice, spreading away from me, giving me breathing space, throwing the weakest of the gang off their feet.

I felt a hand on my elbow, pulling me back, throwing me off my feet and landing hard against the steps. Captain Arrogant had done that, drawing a sword and crossing a sword with Leader Guy. The same sword that had been swinging at me. The two other guards were there, right behind him. My own companions jumped into the skirmish and so I rose to my feet again, taking two steps back, higher up and out of the heart of the fight. From there, I could do the best damage. I stuck to the weakest spells I knew, that wouldn't drain the magic in me so quick and I wouldn't be forced to waste any of my lerium potions.

The archers became an annoyance. Coel, my hound, had always made quick work of those, so I'd never paused to worry over much about them in a long time, not since Ostagar. There, at that time, in Kirkwall, I had no choice but to direct my fire balls and stone fists and nearly as many showers of ice as I could manage at them.

A man screamed, as Aveline brought him down. That scream and the clashing of the swords, singing of steel, the calls of rage and of pain, the panting and the growls of fighting men... they were all a well-known chorus to my ears. Blood was flicked by the back swing of Carver's longsword and the burning droplets splattered my face and arms. Like a well worn layer of skin, it was familiar. The warmth of the liquid, coppery on the edge of my lip, the smell of rust and salt and pungent bitterness.

I was reminded of Tera Amell and I fell into her easily.

I forgot to care about my space. I dove closer, stumbling down the two steps. I forgot about being the cautious Caela commoner. The simple spells were silly. I conjured an armor of rock and felt the weight of the stone forming along my limbs. Each sword swing nicked across stone, bounced away and I shouldered aside the guards, Carver, Aveline, all of them, invoking Leader Guy's most acute attention.

Around us, the others went at it, locking against each other, breaking away, circling. Before the Leader Guy got any fatal blows in (I had no doubt one whack of his greatsword would shatter my armor, including some of my ribs with it) I froze him. The ice helped fortify him, made my strikes dull, but I struck rapidly, using the staff for my strength, not spells, merely the magic I felt throbbing to the surface, bits and pieces, that flushed my cheeks and hitched my breath. Or was that the anger?

For reasons beyond me, I was inexplicably angry. Upset, somewhere inside me, that though the battle was familiar, all I could see were stranger's faces. Infuriated that these simple highwaymen stood in my way to the city. Enraged that they would even attempt to stand in my way, at my new chance at life. All of that was true, all those things, but that didn't seem.. a good enough explanation.

I was angry, so angry. At no one. At that man. Flemeth had promised me that I would get a new life. _Something of what I seek._ If I was required to kill a couple of mediocre fighters to get that, I would.

And what, I think, made me the most frustrated in those moments, was that my first thoughts were of Alistair. Oh, how he would disapprove. How ashamed he would be with me, at my lack of care for human life._ But you're not here_, I had thought, directed bitterly at him, _you don't have a say anymore._ Alistair wasn't there to restrain me anymore. Leliana wouldn't placate me and Morrigan wouldn't use barbs to distract me, and Sten wouldn't complain about my shouting. Shale wouldn't hold me down when I thrashed and made to do something impulsive. I drew on the anger. It was somehow _easier_. It was stronger, I could feel instantly. The lerium in my blood had been thin at that point, having taken a toll by the conjured armor and freezing the Leader Guy, but when I turned myself to my anger, the lerium spiked, soared inside of me, _boiled _in my blood.

The man was thawing. I'd reduced his health to nothing. He was hardly clinging to life. Once the ice completely dissolved and dripped away, Leader Guy staggered in front of me, to his knees, using his sword to stay somewhat upright. Around us his men buzzed and I intended to take them all out in one blow.

With the way my throat swelled, in a good, dizzying way, I discarded my staff and ducked forward. I felt a thrill go through me, with the magic, and I was nearly undone by the anger. But I grasped the man's face, both hands cradling his cheeks, tipping his gaze up to meet my riveting glare. I felt a sneer on my lips, and I let the magic rush out of me, into my palms and onto him.

He screamed, twisted futilely. Smoke rose from the connection between our flesh. Thin rivulets of black crawled up and across his face, ticking silently. Abruptly, I ripped my hands away. His own hands replaced mine. Groaning in agony, he fell to his elbows, bowed.

I turned, snatched my staff and scrambled away. I grabbed uselessly at Carver's arm and shoved at the other city guards and urged Aveline a length or two out of the fight. We were just out of the rough, huddled brawl (which could not have been much more intense than any old pub fight), when the walking bomb spell took effect. Blood splays outward in all directions at the broken cry of Leader Guy. Whoever got hit with a substantial amount fell. They shouted, they tore at their faces, their weapons were dropped in surprise, they wandered in deranged little circles, as the blood seared through their skin. Those who were not directly at the Leader Guy's side and had little touch their flesh in a critical way were stunned after most of their allies dropped dead. They hesitated and stared in appall, giving the city guards time to lurch forward and cut them down.

Carver looked at me in apprehension after all the men lay dead and tucked a protective arm around Bethany, whose face was contorted in admiration and wonder. Aveline sheathed her sword, the movement stiff and professional. "That was well done, Warden," she said.

I hissed through my teeth. "Caela." I turned away from all three roughly, before they could speak. The rebelling men were dead and the sight of the mess, of their bloody corpses across the pretty white tiles of the city made my stomach twist around itself. Hurriedly, I wiped the blood from my face with the sleeve of my tunic and then took careful steps toward Captain Arrogant, avoiding the spreading pools of crimson.

"Unbelievable," Captain Arrogant spat. His eyes roamed the dead, then to me, and behind my back, at my companions. Both him and I jumped, hand flying to staff or sword, at the sound of running footsteps coming our way. But there was no need, it was merely the blonde man from before, who'd told us where to find the guard captain.

"Maker's breath! I heard fighting.. and.. are you alright?" he asked.

"I am. No thanks to you." Captain Arrogant overlooked the younger guard with reproach. "Where is everyone? I thought we were going to contain these things."

"Sir, I don–"

"Go find them!"

I opened my mouth to speak, not in favor of the rookie, nor the captain, but rather to invoke some sort of deal. I had helped the fight, after all, that was worth something. And the sooner I was away from everyone the better I could assess the tremor running in my fingers. "Captain," I started, but he cut in.

"Captain Reane is my name," he supplied, then tipped his head to me. "You have my thanks, for yours and your companion's aid." His old arrogance was missing, a grateful lilt in his expression. "Look, I can't get you into the city. It's not my decision, but I'll find your uncle and bring him here."

"That would be great. Thank you, sir," Bethany jumped in, laying a hand on my arm. Carver jerked her away from me with the arms he had around her waist. Captain Reane was already turning away and missed that entirely, climbing the steps toward the gate. Even before I could reply and inform him that it was not my uncle, as he referred him to be.

I glanced at Carver, who struggled with his sister, the two whispering. Leandra was the one to sigh and speak. "What does it matter?" she said to me, then her children. "She has no real identity yet, only a name."

"You want me to pretend to be your daughter?" I asked the woman archly.

Leandra made an exasperated sound. "I don't care if you do. You got us this far. If you can get us into Kirkwall, then what does it matter if you take the place as a daughter of mine. You're old enough to be without me, and you'd only be taking the name."

_No, _I thought. _I'm already an Amell._ Before, I'd merely put it aside, because Amell couldn't be that uncommon of a name. If I'd grown up in the world, I would have known that for certain. Instead I was from the Circle and knew nothing of common names. Carver knew me as Commander Amell. Surely he would have made a fuss if he thought anything off of it.

"We would only need to confirm her as our sister," Bethany told her brother.

Carver's carefully masked face twitched. "Why would you want to pretend to be related to us?"

_I don't, _I thought. I wished I could leave them behind. Tie them into the rest of the past I'd set out to forget. But to ditch them would be to risk their silence. How could I know if there was someone among all the refugees, travelers, and merchants within Kirkwall, that could recognize me? Or, at least, think they did? What more could I offer them aside a "Nope, sorry" which essentially is nothing? Maybe I _could_ use a back up. I smiled stiffly, and for a moment, the muscles in my face ached. I never had a family before. "I would like that."

Carver frowned at me, suspicious and untrusting, but Bethany beamed and Leandra sniffed in the other direction. I caught Aveline overlooking me, then the corpses and she said nothing. The brother did, however, stress the point that they would help me out only _if _I got them into the city. If their Uncle Gamlen failed, the problem would fall to me. That made the wait for Gamlen extra stressful.

There seemed to be an unspoken agreement between our group to stick together, because we all herded off to find a place to camp out as we waited. There wasn't much talking and Aveline disappeared for a while, but came back with food and shared it. I payed her for my bit. "You could borrow, you know," I told her. I was still feeling queasy over Ser Wesley. "I told you if you came with me, my money and my protection was at your disposal."

"I don't need handouts," Aveline decided, not quite rude, but when she caught me measuring stare, she ghosted a smile. "Thank you, though."

"Of course."

The first night was moderately fine. I offered to stay awake and watch our stuff, to protect it from other people sleeping inside the wall, watching us from their shadowed corners. Halfway through my watch, Carver woke and offered to take over. I let him, reluctantly. I slept for some time, then the nightmares were upon me, as they most often were and I woke gasping, clawing at the stone beneath me.

"Bad dream?" Carver asked.

I shot him a look, swiping the sweat from my hairline. "Memories."

"I was in the war, too. I have my fair share of memories," he said. He was watching me with hooded eyes. I tried to settle more comfortably on the ground to find any scrap of sleep. "But I've never seen anyone thrash so much."

"It's a Grey Warden thing."

He continued to watch me. "I don't trust you," he finally said.

"Good. Don't."

"Are you saying there's a reason I shouldn't?"

"Of course there is." I opened my eyes again and met his gaze in the night. "There's dozens of reasons. I talk to dragon-ladies. I make deals with witches. I have lured you all away from your homeland. You don't know me. War has turned me into a monster. I've run away from something, for some reason. You don't know what that reason is. Could I have been under arrest? Have I turned against the king? Was I chased out? Am I really Commander Amell?" I watched his eyes grow narrower and narrower as I spoke. "You don't know. You don't trust me, so if I told you the answers, you'd still not know. Those are the reasons not to trust me."

Carver pondered them, then pressed his lips into a frown. "You forgot one."

"Enlighten me."

"You're a mage."

I tried not to outwardly flinch at the reminder of the reason I never got to be queen. "Clever boy."

"I'm no boy," Carver said. "I may trust my sister, and I may have loved my father, but I know better than to trust any random apostate because of them. I saw you fight. That crazed look in you."

_Crazed? _No. I was angry. He was mistaken. I wasn't crazy. "I fight well," was my response.

"You fight well, aye. But you fight ruthlessly. Friendly fire is deadly stuff."

"I know better than to hit my own."

"Do you?"

It was my turn to watch him narrowly. "I don't know. Add that to your list." I turned away from him, tucking a hand underneath my pack that was being used as a pillow. I waited for him to scuff and then I closed my eyes. But I couldn't sleep. I fought sleep. I fought the anger that rose in my chest, curled my fists, and urged me to sit back up and hit the boy square in the jaw.

By the next morning, I was certain the idea for me to take up an identity as their sister wouldn't work for several reasons. I was plainly not getting along with more than half of them. I looked nothing like any of them; Carver and Bethany had black hair and the mother's gray tresses gave way to dark brown. According to Bethany their father was the standard reddish-brown haired Fereldan man, though. Eye color was easier to pawn off, because Carver's were blue. Appearance had the potential to hold me back, just as much as the walls of Kirkwall.

I wasn't certain about the plan of pretending to be their sister, but I knew I needed to get into the city. I also knew there couldn't be anything to do about that until Gamlen came and confirmed whether or not there were more convenient ways to get beyond the walls than what I was contemplating.

I'd briefly brought up the discussion with Aveline. Her ideas were the same as mine, which was comforting. That made me not the only one leaping to drastic heights in the group, and made me feel better over being called crazy the other night.

Bethany held too much faith in her uncle to consider other ideas, so we did little together. Perhaps that may have been the work of her brother, keeping us apart. He would bring her around the docks and distract her whenever I spoke to her. More and more I was stuck with Aveline.

One day turned into two as we waited. The others were short of money and I bought our food. (Thank the Maker for all those chests I sacked during my travels in Fereldan). I bought myself new robes, then Bethany, too. Carver almost made her refuse them. Aveline accepted the woolen blanket I snagged. I handed Carver new gauntlets the next day, made of doe skin and studded iron, and I felt as though I were buying their favor. I stopped the gifts immediately after the thought occurred to me.

It was on the third day that Leandra had slipped away to admire some merchant cart with Carver, and Bethany was speaking with another Fereldan family nearby, when Aveline felt compelled to fill the silence between us. I mean, it had been enduring for days, really. Why disrupt it? In the worst way possible, by asking, "Why are you here?"

"I got on a ship."

"That's not what I meant."

I tugged at my robe's sleeve, nervous. "What would you like me to say?"

"The truth."

"I needed to get away. I didn't plan on coming here. To Kirkwall. It just happened."

Silence endured for a moment, then a hand was on my shoulder; heavy, strong, sure. "I didn't plan on coming here, either."

"Where were you and Wesley going?" I said lowly, wondering if it was a question for me to ask.

"Home," Aveline said. "I'm from the rocky coast of the Fereldan north. Wesley had never been there before and I was bringing him to meet my family. I have five sisters, all of them older and married with children. They'd been expecting us.. but.."

My hand flitted up and grasped hers on my shoulder, momentarily. I suspected she didn't want to show up with the corpse of her husband in her arms. That wouldn't be the best family welcome after such a long time. Or, that was what I thought about, since I knew nothing of family. My family was the Circle, and I would have rather died than returned to them. Somehow, I felt more sympathy toward Aveline than I should have.

Another day came and went. With careful consideration, I pieced my temper back together from the mess it became during the fight. Yet, I felt it spike at random moments and I wanted to battle, still, to lash out and beat things and cry and stamp my feet childishly. I never did, any of those things, but the want to was overwhelming sometimes I would wrap my hands into fists and bite into my cheek until I bled.

At night I would bury my face into my makeshift pillow. Usually, the nightmares were of that last fight, with the Archdemon. But sometimes I would remember bits and pieces of other darkspawn battles. On the fourth night, I dreamed of drowning, in the open sea. I screamed and fought, kicked wildly, called out for help. The name on my lips was unbidden; _Alistair. _Then I saw him, distantly, on shore, arms around another woman. The next wave that crashed into me pulled me under and I allowed it. Salt inundated my lung and seared my throat. Then it tasted coppery. Red swam in my vision. Sea turned to blood, thick and congealed, more jam than fluid. I remembered the screams of my fellow Grey Warden recruits in Ostagar. Flemeth's laughter joined that, echoed distantly, more disturbing than the blood that pressed around me on all sides.

It was in a panicked flurry that I woke, jerking to the sitting position, hands jumping up to cradle my throat. I breathed desperately, ignoring Carver's stare. "I'll take watch," I told him, wheezily. "You can sleep."

"I'm not tired," he said.

"Have it your way, but I'm not sleeping." I hiked the blanket I'd bought for myself to my shoulders and positioned it around them, hugging the fabric closed over my chest. I stared at the walls, eyes tracing the shapes of them, subconsciously trying to find the best place to climb over.

It was nearer to the gray light of dawn that Carver said: "You talk in your sleep."

I knew that. Oghren used to love that. Sometimes he wouldn't, of course, when it was me crying out for help or in pain or pleading with someone to _stop_. Other times, it was amusing. My guess was Carver didn't find it all that entertaining. "I take it I've offended you in some way," I said.

"No. I was only.. wondering, who's Goldanna?"

"Did I say that name?" I struggled to remember the dream, because it was foggy, but I was certain Alistair's half-sister had nothing to do with it. "Was that tonight?"

"Two days ago."

"I don't remember that."

"That's not what I asked.." he started to say, then shook his head. "Never mind."

"She's from Denerim, has five children and washes clothes. Did you know her?"

"I lived in Lothering my whole life before I joined your army. So, no."

I glanced at him. He was staring sadly into the sky. "Why did you ask?"

"Goldanna sounds like Joanna," he said, simply. "I used to know a girl with that name."

"Ah."

Carver turned sharply at the sound. "Not 'ah'. You don't understand."

I raised my hands in surrender. "Okay, I don't." But I did. More than we both wanted me to.

On the fourth day, Gamlen finally arrived.

No one saw him strutting our way until he exclaimed, "Leandra!" and was embracing her. Carver jumped to his feet in seconds, preparing for a fight, but everyone managed to reel in any startlement.

"Damn girl, the years haven't been kind to you," the man continued.

"Gamlen," Leandra merely replied, sighing, relief-filled. She said something more, and he did too, while I stood and took the time to measure this man up. He was of average height and strength, old, with a short beard, and eyes too shifty for my liking.

I noted his returned hesitation in Leandra's affection. His words stumbled and came out as: "Let me just say up front. I wasn't expecting this. The Blight! Your husband.. dead. I-I just.." Leandra pulled away from him and he couldn't quite meet her gaze. "I just figured you'd pretty much be Fereldan for life."

In a single breath, and only a few sentences, Gamlen reminded me of Loghain. The manner in which he received people, the dishonesty, the assumptions, the maneuver to blame not himself, but something other than him; such as the Blight, or her own misleading decision. Everyone else was blind to it. Especially his own sister. "Oh, Gamlen!" she said. "We came too late! My poor Melina didn't make it, Andraste guide her.."

"Leandra don't drop this on me here. I don't even know if I can help you get in."

There was my chance. I stepped out of Aveline's shadow and those shifty eyes instantly zoned in on me. Less for my own sake, and more for theirs, I asked, "How about just your kin?"

Leandra instantly disregarded my suggestion. "_No_. We stay together."

Bethany pulled an arm around my waist and tried to reel me into her side, but I shrugged her away in confused instinct. I regretted instantly the harshness of that, when I saw the offense in her eyes. Gamlen spoke before I could, "I was hoping to grease some palms, just for one or two, but the Knight Commander's been cracking down. For all of you? We're gonna need more grease. _A lot_ more."

"But what about the estate?" Leandra asked. "Surely father left something when he died."

Gamlen grew uncomfortable. "R-right.. about the estate. It's um.. gone. To settle a debt. I've been meaning to write you..."

Carver made a dark, upset sound, and Bethany twisted to rest a calming hand on his bicep, but Aveline beat her to it. I watched in wonder at the way Carver didn't recoil from Aveline's touch.

"Then there is no hope," Leandra said.

I tried not to smile. Instantly, I made to think of some ways to get us all into the city. The plans were half soaring, half built to completion, when they were shattered by Gamlen: "Not quite." He leaned in, lowering his voice. "I know some people who might help. _If_ you're not too delicate about the company you keep."

"We don't have much choice, do we?" Carver grumbled.

"Well," Gamlen said, not even gracing Carver with a reply, "I talked to my contacts and I found some people who would be willing to pay your way into the city. The catch is–" _Wasn't Flemeth saying something about catches and deals? _"–Carver and Melina.." There Gamlen slammed to a halt, stunted for a minute, then gave Leandra a pitying look. "I had thought she would be.. alive. I don't know if the deal would–"

"My other daughter will be enough," Leandra put in smoothly. She placed a hand on my bicep. "Caela is just as good as Melina ever could have been. My third daughter. I was meaning to tell you of her, I just never got around to writing because she was always so.. and she is very much like Bethany and my husband.. I didn't want to risk the Templars. You know how it is." I tried to hide my bewilderment at the story; even Carver looked thrown. But both of us managed to tighten out lips and remain outwardly unperturbed.

"Well then," Gamlen said, looking me over like the men in Denerim used to before I became known as a Grey Warden. Like I were a wife or whore in training. "I guess she'll do. She's is smaller than you'd said Melina had been." Then, addressing me, "Are you skilled?"

"Somewhat."

"The deal will require Carver and yourself to work off the debt of getting into the city... for a year." He paused to assess the flare of displeasure written in both Leandra and Bethany's faces. "Are you skilled enough for that?"

I'd known that what it was to pay a debt, of course. But for that long? An entire year? More oft than not we'd be doing someone's dirty work, or trivial kill jobs – if not the job that come aft the killing. The thought of a year in servitude displeased me greatly. I'd left for freedom, not to be enslaved while in search of it.

My temper wavered, ridiculously. I couldn't pinpoint the why, only that the magic in my blood pulsed a fraction tighter. I buried the feeling, straightened and tipped my head to Gamlen. "Is there any amount of coin that would convince these 'contacts' to shorten this sentence?"

"How much coin?" he wanted to know.

Leandra finally found her voice and cut in: "A _year_?"

"It was the best I could do. Trust me when I say a bunch of refugee haven't and won't get a better option anywhere else. Take this. It's the deal of a lifetime–"

"So selling us into a criminal servitude is the _best_ option? I don't buy it," said Carver.

"You don't have to buy it, just endure it. Think of it as a job waiting for you in your new home." No one made a reply to that, so he continued, "I managed to convince my contacts to come to the gallows to meet you personally. Mearin is head of the mercenary company; The Red Iron. They're looking for recruits. Athenril.. I guess you might just call her a smuggler. Either one of them can help you. All you need to do is find them in the court yard, and convince them you're worth the trouble."

"We'll meet with them, but I can't guarantee they will be worth my time," I said.

Gamlen was displeased by that. "You think you could do better?"

"I can always try."

After a little fuss, it ended up being only Carver and I who would meet with these two potential employers. Bethany wanted to come, but both Gamlen and Leandra urged her to remain behind. Aveline and I spoke privately and we made our own sort of deal; there would remain no more debt of any sort between us if she allowed me to put her cost of entering the city onto my plate. A clean slate. Which was more than I could say for the rest of our group. I certainly owed the Hawke family for their borrowed name. It was odd to think that if Leandra had not taken her married named (Hawke) I could still be going by the same last name (her maiden name; Amell). And thus, I found it disconcerting when Carver told this Athenril woman to address me as such: "This is my sister, Caela Hawke."

The elven woman greeted us, but dove straight into business. I heard only little of what she said. I had no interest in what she offered in the manner of employment. Smuggling was ever not my strong suit, with my clumsy tendency when it came to sticky fingers, and my lies usually led to ill-tempered ones that came out short and harsh and obvious. Carver and I both agreed that a mercenary's life would be easier to endure.

As we approached a gaggle of four or five men, who seemed to be expecting us, Carver murmured close to my ear, "Do you really think you can get us a better deal?"

"We can hope."

"How?"

"Depends on the person."

Mearin looked like just the right one. Him and his men wore fine clothes and sharp, polished weapons that spoke of good wealth. He had those eyes. The kind that locked with yours, that seemed to target you, personally. As if my every little weakness was his sweetest delight and his most delicious secret were my undoings.

A smirk played over his companion's faces that did not touch his own. I knew why. They saw my shortness, my tiny fists, and thought me comical. I had endured that look before. In the tower from Templars that were not Cullen, when I was in Ostagar, new to the whole world. It had been a long while since I had last seen it, though, let alone directed at me. Sten and Shale had put an end of them; no one laughed at the woman who was accompanied by a man, or being, such as them. However, they were gone. I was back in the same meek position as before. Constantly taken as a joke.

Carver didn't seem to earn any of their respect either, nor impress them. That would not bode us well.

"What can we help you with?" Mearin asked, when we finally stepped before them.

"I'm Caela–"

"–Hawke," Carver finished for me, flinging out a hand to the man. "And I am Carver. My uncle, Gamlen, sent us." Mearin eyed the hand and did not move to shake it. "Can you get us into the city?"

Mearin's consideration turned toward me, doubtful. "I was told you had the skills to be useful."

I tried not to sneer. "Tell me what you want done and.. we can work out a deal."

"Deal?" Mearin said, smiling. "There already is a deal. We get you in, and you work for a year."

I shook my head, reaching for my pack to pull out some coin encouragement, but my motives were read wrong, as it seemed their eyes zoned in on the staff slung across my back. Mearin's hand moved as a snake strikes, and grasped me around the wrist, twisting the appendage enough to bruise.

I tried to wretch myself free, but he was undoubtedly stronger, his face set into grim lines. Carver stepped forward, but Mearin gave my arm a jerk, pulling me downward, turning the wrist enough so that it clicked and I let the pain spark panic. And the panic quickly turned to anger when the lerium in my blood got involved.

"I don't have a year," I snarled, and allowed the magic to rush through my skin and sear across his. It was him who retched away from me, fire leaving an uglier burn mark on his flesh than the later bruising on mine would be.

The truth was I did have a year. I had plenty. I simply didn't want to waste any of them, especially in service of someone else. Particularly him. I had recently devoted a year of my life to Fereldan and the Blight and the Grey Wardens. I hadn't gotten anything good or lasting out of that other than knowledge, learned lessons, and new skills. Mearin offered me even less than that. "We'll give you three months service, anything you ask, and in return you get all of us into the city. To sweeten the deal, I pay you a nice, hefty sum now, and I don't kill you. Agreed?"

Predictably, him and and his men didn't take well to being bossed around, or threatened. Nonetheless, Mearin considered my words, rubbing his hand where it was wounded and then exchanged dark glances with the men around him. They were tense, and I was rightfully anticipating a fight, so I pulled the staff from my back and Carver shifted. He shifted to put one broad shoulder in front of mine. I was offended, fleetingly, at first. Then I realized that I was also gratified, to the smallest degree. At the very least it meant that Carver did not wish me dead.

"There are hundreds of others I could offer this deal to. They wouldn't even hesitate," said Mearin.

"Then why aren't there hundreds of others lining up behind me? Why haven't you stopped looking for recruits if there are so many occupants to choose?" I stepped forward, dropping my head back to meet his gaze and was about to drive myself further into the hole, but Carver pulled me back with a hand on my elbow.

"Caela," he warned.

The anger had snuck up on me. I shook myself, then shoved my staff into Carver's hands, to pull the heavy sack of coins from my pack. It was nearly all the money I possessed. Enough to cover Aveline and Bethany, if not Leandra as well. I held it out to Mearin. "Three months."

They continued to appear unconvinced and displeased until he looked through the hundreds of shining gold coins and their faces became less so, and much more compliant. Mearin tied the pouch to his belt, considering Carver and I sharply, before, finally, a thin smile touched his rugged face and he extended a hand our way. I took it tightly, and we shook: "You have yourself a deal, Hawke."

A jolt of surprise caught me at the name, but I hid it well.

I would have to get used to it.


	7. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Dragon Age, 9:34 – Act II: year six –_ future_

Anders moved about the Clinic preparing a place for me to rest. Wind swelled against the walls outside and filled the cluttered little establishment with sounds of creaking boards, the thin keening of air squeezing through crevices and a thunderous prattle of rain on the roof overhead. The walls were old wood, half rotted, rocking in the harsh tempest, and packed soil floors were covered in a hearty mess of straw that blustered about, or puddled from the drips falling from the ceiling. Other than two or three corpses, Anders and I were the only souls present. Discounting, of course, the rats scuttling in the shadows. We'd left Cullen not long ago, watching him enter the Chantry, and I was beginning to feel not only my exhaustion, an aching pain at my groin, but a bitter taste of regret in my mouth for more than one thing.

Sickness and death were the only things I could smell. I knew Anders must try his best to clean the place up, but there was only so much one could do, and Anders was and will never be much of a cleaner. The scents were embroidered into the very structure of the place; stale blood, cold flesh, festering turned green. Corrupted by the very things that the clinic fought to cure.

Unable to wait for Anders' bustling, I fell into the nearest cot. I sagged in my skin, and closed my eyes. I would have nodded off immediately into sleep if it wasn't for my thoughts that kept my mind racing.

"Caela –" He started to object. "Never mind." Throwing down the blankets he'd been laying out, he passed by me, skimmed a hand over my ankle, and then the sound of Anders busying himself at the fire, cooking, filled the dank hut.

Starving as I was, all I could think was: _Why had I done it?_

Why had I run from Denerim all those years ago?

_Because of the wedding_, I told myself dizzily, _because Alistair couldn't keep the boundaries._

If that was true how come I couldn't remember the wedding anymore? What had Empress Celene looked like? Alistair... I remembered he'd come to me ("You're my real queen. Always.") but I could not recall what was so painstaking about staying and ignoring him? It all seemed so trivial after the years spent in Kirkwall... and no matter how I tried to blame my running on that, on the wedding, on frivolous weddings, it didn't stick. I nearly deluded myself to believe it, but I couldn't hide from the truth. Not for long anyway.

The truth was that I couldn't stay in Denerim because I was scared. Darkspawn, a crumbling circle, werewolves, warring elves, a dwarf's hierarchy, and an Archdemon.. I could handle all that, but the threat of the Circle of Magi coming for me? I fled like a dog with its tail between its legs.

Eamon's face was nothing more than a wisp of pale skin and gray hair. His words were lost to me, all I recalled were the threat, the fear I felt;_ I was scared of being locked away. That's why I left. _Alistair was an excuse to go, not the reason. The kicker that got me going.

Or had it been? Am I only trying to convince myself that it hadn't? That I hadn't loved him as much as I seemed to before I met Fenris and he threw my on a whole new flight of love? On whole different levels? Bringing me higher than I'd ever been, or ever known, was possible?

Thoughts of Fenris peaked the headache pulsing in my temples. An old anger started to sear through my blood. An unjust, misunderstood rage. So much dimmer to what it had been all those years ago when first arriving to Kirkwall. Back then I didn't know what lay to blame for it, I didn't understand it, nor could I control it. But I knew better then, laying in the Clinic, in the throws of my afterbirth. For years I hadn't and I had falsely accused things to be the cause. Mostly in thanks to Fenris, but to hold that against him would be my undoing. Not until I had the strength to hate him. I was too exhausted to do anything; to even fight with Anders. I ached, my flesh stung with the cold, and I could literally feel the acute weakness in my blood. My lerium levels were low, and had been low since the moment I gave birth. I wondered if my child would be a mage.

I jolted upright, reaching incoherently for my staff. _Maker! If my child is a mage they'll send them straight to the Circle. And how can I allow that? _ "I have to go back!" Unable to locate my weapon of choice I stood, stumbled as a pain gripped my ribcage, but still made to leave. I slipped in a damp pile of straw, and Anders caught me around the wrist before I hit the floor.

"Why? Go back to your Templar or to the caves? Caela, speak sense."

_Sense? What matter is sense when my son could be introduced to the horror of the Circle?_ I fought the hand on my wrist. Anders pressed his knuckles to my forehead and frowned. "You're running a fever. I have a potion –"

"No! I have... I have to.."

I knew they had the Hawke family estate under watchful eyes. I couldn't take the child there, as I'd known the moment labor struck me. Wanted posters with my face on them could be found plastered everywhere, so whatever I did had to be done before sunrise. Aveline, Fenris, and Isabella occupied High Town while Merrill and Varric were likely throughout Low Town. Dark Town? The Clinic? Anders wouldn't keep my son. I couldn't live here with him. Word would travel. Patients coming through wouldn't hold their tongues and I didn't have the gold to assure that. Suddenly, I went slack in Anders' arms. I came to the same realization I had known the whole pregnancy. _He is safer without me as his mother. He is better off not being my son. All I bring upon those I love is misfortune._

_Mage or not, he is better off as far away from his apostate mother and slave father as he can be._

Dispirited, I allowed Anders to put me back into a cot, tuck me under a blanket and force a potion down my throat. The fire he'd started began to warm my toes, but my heart remained cold and hard in my chest. I stared into the flames. I thought of a girl named Tera Amell.

I thought of children with goofy grins, freckles, and sandy-red hair. My heart pf stone managed to clench in adoration. Alistair and I would have had a castle-full of little ones. He would have been a wonderful father. They would love him, would learn from him as I had. I wanted them. _Wanted_, I thought. Tera Amell wanted them.

Caela Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall, had a son with rich brown curls and clipped ears. "Don't be a mage," I murmured. "Don't be a mage. Don't be a mage." I prayed aloud, and after a moment, slipped onto the floor and took up a position I had not taken for near ten years. Anders objected at first, until he saw that I lowered myself into a bowed position, fingers curling into my hair. _Don't be a mage. Don't be an eleven mage. Don't become a dreamer. Don't let his father hate him. Don't let him think I hate him. Let him know I loved him. Don't let him be a mage, oh Andraste. Anything, but a mage._

It felt as though a fist clenched around my throat, yet tears wouldn't come. No matter how much I urged them to come now instead of later, and my chest shook with my breath, no sobs would wretch themselves free. My prayers were reverent and useless and I wished... I _wished_..

"Anders?" I whispered.

"Caela?"

The name was right and wrong. I wanted to correct him. To be honest to him. After everything he saw today, all of me, at my weakest.. it seemed appropriate. But I couldn't even be honest with Fenris, or Varric, let alone Anders and I allowed that piece of me to float away, to be forgotten. As it always was.

"Do you think I've made a mistake?" The words shook.

There was a pause before he answered. I raised myself off the floor and leaned heavily into the cot for support. Anders was staring off behind my head. I stared at his face. It was hard to imagine him in the confinements of the Circle as I had once known it.

I didn't give him a chance to answer my first question. I was afraid of his answer.

"Do you remember it? The circle, I mean."

"Yes. It's not something you forget."

"How.. do you recall it?"

"I can't say I know what you mean."

I sighed, moving a hand to brush hair from my eyes. "You _know_."

"I don't." Anders sat on a stool before the fire, knees spread apart, poking the logs with a medal rob. Though the flames were small, shadows were cast about the Clinic, licked up the sides of his face. His eyes fell to meet my gaze, brows dramatically outlined, broadened in the apparitions. He seemed something entirely else; darker, brooding. "How do _you _recall it?"

I was dizzy with loss, fever, and exhaustion. I wasn't myself that night, or the past nine months. I should have known instantly that question was off. _Caela would have known. She would have instantly realized Anders was playing a dangerous game. _Tera was ever more naïve than Caela. It was Tera who had lived in the Circle. _And so, I had answered him as Tera would, _"Tall. I recall it being very tall. I remember sitting at the windows that looked out on the lake, and some nights looking straight down and it was.. so high up.. the world so far below_. _All the water down there, spreading in every directions and the land and mountains distant and small in comparison. I used to think leaving would be impossible. That no matter how far I went I would never reach _somewhere, anywhere _in time." I raised my eyes to the ceiling. "I also recall it as.. very suffocating. Templars loomed around you day and night, in armor that suggested we could someone murder them in the blink of an eye. And when they weren't really there those armored statues about the halls made you think someone was watching you. But, the good thing about that is that I never felt alone."

He hummed in reply, and stared intensely at me. His eyes gave away nothing. I was waiting for him to laugh at me, but he never did. (I had not known my mistake, then.) "I remember it differently," was all he said.

Sleepiness came over me after that. The effects of the potion. I was glad. Without the induced potent sleep I would probably not have been able to force it naturally. I lay listening to Anders stirring a pot of stew, and the pitter patter of rain. I waited for him to decide the food was ready. Scents of crushed clove, boiled wine, potatoes, and pickled vegetables kept me tethered to consciousness. Food, then sleep. And in the morning I would reemerge into the world. Hopefully refreshed.

I imagined what it would be like if Fenris were with me. I expect he would be sitting closer, or laying beside me, rubbing my arms, trying to warm me up from my chill. Or I could be wrong. He could be just as done with me as he was when I left all those months ago. When he called _us_ off. Perhaps if he were here his hands would be curled into fists, he would be standing in the far corner, as tense as a board, unable to look away from my eyes. Forcing me to face the glare of all he was feeling; frustration, irritation, annoyance. I would laugh nervously, trying to wave away my stupidity, my thoughtlessness of making him worry. For months. I would pretend that I hadn't just given birth to our son. I would look out at the storm and say, _"So, nice weather we're having."_

And Fenris would fight the twitch of his lip, while yelling, "_How can you talk of the weather right now!"_

The shudder that coursed through my body like mountain wind was not because of the harshness I imagined in his tone, but the fear that crept into it. He would be scared for me, as all of my companions were. _Poor lost Caela_, they would think. _Gone for months, no where to be found. Poor lost Tera._

I wished I could deny it.


End file.
